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 except in constantly wanting the white above the tail. He had watched great flocks of these birds, as especially those crowding about the many suitable nooks of the great mosque of Aurungzebe, at Benares, looking down upon them from the top of one of the two famous lofty minarcts of that edifice, and had observed in them no variation of colour; but this race particularly frequents large buildings equally with rocky precipices, whether inland or by the sea-side, as also old ruinous walls; and in parts of the country where such do not occur, it breeds abundantly far down the shufts of deep wells; and in towns and villages it merges insensibly into domesticity; and among the more or less domesticated individuals are very many that exhibit the spotted wing of the (so called) Columba affinis. He would, moreover, remark that among the domestic pigeons of India, it is as rare to see the white rump as is the reverse in Europe. In Middle Asia another cognate race exists in the Columba rupestris of Pallas, which occurs in Thibet and in the British province of Kemaon. High upon the Himalayas there is the Columba leuconota, which is another true rock pigeon, though differing more from the rest in plumage; and in Abyssinia, again, there is a peculiar corresponding race of Blue Pigeon, which is denominated Columba sehimperi; as in Senegal there is even another, denominated Columba gymnocyclos, by Mr G. R. Gray. The decided use of applying names to such distinguishable geographical races was, that each of them could thus be severally and definitively referred to by its special designation. This was a practical advantage, wholly irrespective of the zoological value to be attached to such appellation, about which there would of course be difference of opinion. The whole of the races mentioned, Mr. Blyth fully believed, would intermingle in domesticity, and produce completely fertile hybrids, or, should he not rather call them sub-hybrids."

There can be no doubt, as Mr. Blyth surmises, that all these races will intermingle with the greatest readiness, and produce perfectly fertile progeny, which can only be regarded as mongrels between different varieties or breeds, and not as hybrids between two distinct species.

Variations, however, of a much more striking character, not unfrequently occur in single cases of wild birds; but when they take place in a state of nature, they are not very likely to be propagated, inasmuch as a bird with any variation of plumage or form will almost of necessity mate with one of the ordinary character, the offspring again do the same, so that in a very few generations all trace of any singular variation is apt to be lost.

In a state of domesticity, however, any singular variation would be noticed, and, by careful selection of breeding stock, would be perpetuated, and even increased. In this manner all the different breeds have been produced. Some Indian fanciers in distant ages (for pigeons have been kept as domestic pets many hundreds of years in India), observing that cerlain pigeons were produced with extra feathers in the tails, mated them together, and again selecting those of the offspring that showed the desired characters, succeeded eventually in producing the Fantail. Some short time since a pigeon was forwarded to the writer, with a second or supplementary