36 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



Each of these races falls into sub-races ; thus there is a German, 

 an English, and a Dutch pouter-pigeon. The books on pigeons 

 mention over 150 kinds which are quite distinct from one another, 

 and breed true, that is, alwa} 7 s produce young similar to themselves. 



Without entering upon a detailed description of any of these, 

 I should like to call attention to the way in which certain characters 

 have varied among them. Colour is a subordinate race-character, 

 in so far that colour alone does not constitute a race, yet the colouring 

 within a particular sub-race is usually very sharply defined, and in 

 every breed there are sub-races of different colours. Thus there 

 are white, black, and blue fantails, there are white turbits with 

 red-brown wings, but also red ones with white heads, and white 

 tumblers with black heads, &c. Very unusual colours and colour- 

 markings sometimes occur. Thus one sub- race of tumblers exhibits 

 a peculiar clayey-yellow colour splashed with black markings, otherwise 

 rare among pigeons, and almost suggestive of a prairie-hen ; there is 

 also a copper-red spot-pigeon, a cherry-reel ' Gimpel '-pigeon, lark- 

 coloured pigeons, &c. Then we find all possible juxtapositions of 

 colours, limited to quite definite regions of the body ; thus we have 

 white tumblers with a red head, red tail, and red wing- tips, or white 

 tumblers with a black head, red turbits with white head, Indian 

 pigeons quite black except for white wing-tips, and so on. The 

 distribution of colour is often very complicated, but nevertheless, all 

 the individuals of the breed show it in exactly the same manner. Thus 

 there are the so-called blondinettes in which almost the whole body 

 is copper- red, but the wings white, save that each quill bears at the 

 rounded end of its vane a black and red fringe. I should never come 

 to an end, if I were to try to give anything like a complete idea of the 

 diversity of colouring among the various breeds of pigeons. 



Even such an important and, among wild species, unusually 

 constant organ as the bill has varied among pigeons to an astonishing 

 degree. Carrier-pigeons (Fig. 1, No. 6) have an enormously long and 

 strong bill, which is moreover covered with a thick red growth of the 

 cere, while in the turbits and owls (Fig. 1, Nos. 8 and 10) the bill is 

 shorter than any we find among wild birds. In many breeds even the 

 form of the bill deviates far from the normal, as in the bagadottes 

 (No. 5) with crooked bill. 



Like the bill, the legs vary in regard to their length. The 

 pouters (No. 1) stand on their long legs as on stilts, while the legs of 

 the ' Nurnberger swallow ' are strikingly small. Remarkable, too, and 

 very different from the wild species, is the thick growth of feathers 

 on the feet and toes of the pouters and trumpeters (Fig. 1, No. 1), 



