election of those
individual mongrels, which present any desired character; but that
a race could be obtained nearly intermediate between two extremely
different races or species, I can hardly believe. Sir J. Sebright
expressly experimentised for this object, and failed. The offspring from
the first cross between two pure breeds is tolerably and sometimes (as I
have found with pigeons) extremely uniform, and everything seems simple
enough; but when these mongrels are crossed one with another for several
generations, hardly two of them will be alike, and then the extreme
difficulty, or rather utter hopelessness, of the task becomes apparent.
Certainly, a breed intermediate between TWO VERY DISTINCT breeds could
not be got without extreme care and long-continued selection; nor can
I find a single case on record of a permanent race having been thus
formed.

ON THE BREEDS OF THE DOMESTIC PIGEON.

Believing that it is always best to study some special group, I have,
after deliberation, taken up domestic pigeons. I have kept every breed
which I could purchase or obtain, and have been most kindly favoured
with skins from several quarters of the world, more especially by the
Honourable W. Elliot from India, and by the Honourable C. Murray from
Persia. Many treatises in different languages have been published on
pigeons, and some of them are very important, as being of considerable
antiquity. I have associated with several eminent fanciers, and have
been permitted to join two of the London Pigeon Clubs. The diversity of
the breeds is something astonishing. Compare the English carrier and the
short-faced tumbler, and see the wonderful difference in their beaks,
entailing corresponding differences in their skulls. The carrier,
more especially the male bird, is also remarkable from the wonderful
development of the carunculated skin about the head, and this is
accompanied by greatly elongated eyelids, very large external orifices
to the nostrils, and a wide gape of mouth. The short-faced tumbler has a
beak in outline almost like that of a finch; and the common tumbler has
the singular and strictly inherited habit of flying at a great height in
a compact flock, and tumbling in the air head over heels. The runt is a
bird of great size, with long, massive beak and large feet; some of the
sub-breeds of runts have very long necks, others very long wings and
tails, others singularly short tails. The barb is allied to the carrier,
but, i