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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIII 



door in the face of inductive science. It is time to be undeceived 

 in this matter. 



Wm. E. Ritteb. 



EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY 

 Inheritance of Color in Pigeons. — The breeding experiments of 

 pigeons, described by R. Staples-Brown in the Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society of London for 1908, pages 67-104, are 

 of interest because he repeated certain experiments by which 

 Darwin obtained a reversionary type resembling Columba livia. 

 Darwin concluded that domesticated pigeons sprang therefore 

 from the wild rock pigeon. The varieties of pigeons used by 

 Staples-Brown were with one exception identical with those used 

 by Darwin and the experiments were planned on similar lines. 

 Darwin's experiment, it will be recalled, was as follows: 1 A 

 black Barb was crossed with a white Fantail and a black Barb 

 with a red Spot (white bird with tail and tail coverts red having 

 a red spot on the forehead). Upon mating hybrids produced 

 by these two crosses Darwin obtained a pigeon identical with 

 Columba livia, excepting that "the head was tinted with a shade 

 of red, evidently derived from the Spot, and was a paler blue 

 than in the rock pigeon." Staples-Brown substituted a black 

 and white Nun for Darwin's red Spot which was not readily 

 obtainable. 



A Nun is a white bird with certain well-defined markings of 

 black, blue, red or yellow. The individuals used in Staples- 

 Brown experiments were black and white, the black appearing 

 on the chin and throat, part of the outer flight feathers, a few 

 secondaries and tertiaries, the tail and upper and under tail 

 coverts. The Barb pigeon is self-colored, black, red, yellow, dun 

 or white, with a small beak and the skin around the eyes broad 

 and carunculated. Black Barbs only were used in these experi- 

 ments. The Fantails used were white. When the Barb X Fan- 

 tail hybrids were bred to the Barb X Nun hybrids no rever- 

 sionary types were produced. These experiments were discon- 

 tinued owing to lack of space. However, when Barb X Fantail 

 hybrids were mated together some of the offspring had blue 

 feathers. The blue color was chiefly on the tail as described by 



'"Animals and Plants under Domestication," 2d edition, Vol. I, p. 209. 



