Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/112

90 colour, the tail has a dark band across the end, the wings have two black bands, and the outer tail-feathers are edged with white at the base. No other wild pigeon in the world has this combination of characters. Now in every one of the domestic varieties, even the most extreme, all the above marks, even to the white edging of the outer tail-feathers, are sometimes found perfectly developed. When birds belonging to two distinct breeds are crossed one or more times, neither of the parents being blue, or having any of the above-named marks, the mongrel offspring are very apt to acquire some of these characters. Mr. Darwin gives instances which he observed himself. He crossed some white fantails with some black barbs, and the mongrels were black, brown, or mottled. He also crossed a barb with a spot, which is a white bird with a red tail and red spot on the forehead, and the mongrel offspring were dusky and mottled. On now crossing these two sets of mongrels with each other, he obtained a bird of a beautiful blue colour, with the barred and white edged tail, and double-banded wings, so as almost exactly to resemble a wild rock-pigeon. This bird was descended in the second generation from a pure white and pure black bird, both of which when unmixed breed their kind remarkably true. These facts, well known to experienced pigeon-fanciers, together with the habits of the birds, which all like to nest in holes, or dovecots, not in trees like the great majority of wild pigeons, have led to the general belief in the single origin of all the different kinds.

In order to afford some idea of the great differences which exist among domesticated pigeons, it will be well to give a brief abstract of Mr. Darwin's account of them. He divides them into eleven distinct races, most of which have several sub-races.

Pouters.—These are especially distinguished by the enormously enlarged crop, which can be so inflated in some birds as almost to conceal the beak. They are very long in the body and legs and stand almost upright, so as to present a very distinct appearance. Their skeleton has become modified, the ribs being broader and the vertebræ more numerous than in other pigeons.