Page:Pigeons - their structure, varieties, habits, and management (IA b28107901).pdf/37



AVING treated at length of the structure and habits of the Rock Dove, it is now desirable to enter upon the consideration of the production of the numerous varieties of Pigeons that are known to naturalists and fanciers, and which are regarded by all who have carefully studied the subject as being descended from the one wild species which has been so fully described in the last chapter.

The Rock Dove is one of those animals that is capable of being domesticated hy man. The opinion that the majority of animals could be domesticated is one that is very generally prevalent, but has no foundation whatever in fact. For example, if a pair of eggs from the nest of a wild Blue Rock are placed under a domestic pigeon that has been sitting the same length of time as the birds from which the eggs were taken, the latter will produce a pair of Blue Rocks, that will become domesticated, being attached to their domus, or home.

On the other hand, if pair of eggs from the Stock Dove (Columba anas), or the Ring Dove (Columba palumbus), be treated in a precisely similar manner, the birds so produced will not become domesticated. There is precisely the same difference between the fowl and the pheasant. The former is so attached to its home that the return of the brood at night has given rise to the proverb that "Curses, like chickens, always come home fo roost." The pheasants, on the other hand, may have been tame-bred for twenty generations, and yet are no nearer true domestication than their wild progenitors.

The ease with which the Rock Dove is domesticated may be gathered from the anecdote so exquisitely told by Macgillivray in the last chapter (page 20). This capability of perfect domestication is one of the conditions necessary to the production of distinct and numerous varieties.

It is well known that all animals, even those living in perfectly natural conditions, are subject to certain variations, such as those of colour, form, size, &c. Thus we have not unfrequent examples of white moles, blackbirds, and other animals; and changes of form and size are equally common.

In birds as extensively distributed as the Rock Dove (Columba livia), slight local or geographical variations constantly occur. Thus, in India, all the wild Blue Rocks have ash-coloured feathers over the rump, whereas the European birds have, as is well known, white rumps; and, as is well known to most fanciers, this white rump is one of the most difficult points to "breed out" in any of our Blue varieties; whereas the Blue breeds derived from the Indian birds have, as might be expected,