214: DOMESTIC PIGEONS. Chap. VI. 



peculiarity in question would almost certainly be obliterated 

 by free intercrossing. It might, however, occasionally happen 

 that the same variation repeatedly occurred, owing to the action 

 of peculiar and uniform conditions of life, and in this case it would 

 prevail independently of selection. But when selection is brought 

 into play all is changed ; for this is the foundation-stone in the 

 formation of new races ; and with the pigeon, circumstances, as 

 we have already seen, are eminently favourable for selection. 

 When a bird presenting some conspicuous variation has been 

 preserved, and its offspring have been selected, carefully matched, 

 and again propagated, and so onwards during successive gene- 

 rations, the principle is so obvious that nothing more need 

 be said about it. This may be called methodical selection, for 

 the breeder has a distinct object in view, namely, to preserve 

 some character which has actually appeared ; or to create some 

 improvement already pictured in his mind. 



Another form of selection has hardly been noticed by those 

 authors who have discussed this subject, but is even more im- 

 portant. This form may be called unconscious selection, for the 

 breeder selects his birds unconsciously, unintentionally, and 

 without method, yet he surely though slowly produces a great 

 result. I refer to the effects which follow from each fancier at 

 first procuring and afterwards rearing as good birds as he can, 

 according to his skill, and according to the standard of excel- 

 lence at each successive period. He does not wish permanently 

 to modify the breed ; he does not look to the distant future, or 

 speculate on the final result of the slow accumulation during many 

 generations of successive slight changes ; he is content if he pos- 

 sesses a good stock, and more than content if he can beat his 

 rivals. The fancier in the time of Aldrovandi, wheV in the year 

 1600 he admired his own jacobins, pouters, or carriers, never 

 reflected what their descendants in the year 1860 would become ; 

 he would have been astonished could he have seen our jacobins, 

 our improved English carriers, and our pouters ; he would pro- 

 bably have denied that they were the descendants of his own 

 once admired stock, and he would perhaps not have valued them, 

 for no other reason, as was written in 1765, " than because they 

 were not like what used to be thought good when he was in 

 the fancy." No one will attribute the lengthened beak of the 



