size of body, the beak is .28 of an inch too
short. So, again, the feet of this bird were actually .45 shorter, and
proportionally .21 of an inch shorter, than the feet of the
rock-pigeon. The middle toe has only twelve or thirteen, instead of
fourteen or fifteen scutellae. The primary wing-feathers are not rarely
only nine instead of ten in number. The improved short-faced Tumblers
have almost lost the power of tumbling; but there are several authentic
accounts of their occasionally tumbling. There are several
sub-varieties, such as Baldheads, Beards, Mottles, and Almonds; the
latter are remarkable from not acquiring their perfectly-coloured
plumage until they have moulted three or four times. There is good
reason to believe that most of these sub-varieties, some of which breed
truly, have arisen since the publication of Moore's treatise in
1735.[293]

Finally, in regard to the whole group of Tumblers, it is impossible to
conceive a more perfect gradation than I have now lying before me, from
the rock-pigeon, through Persian, Lotan, and Common Tumblers, up to the
marvellous short-faced birds; which latter, no ornithologist, judging
from mere external structure, would place in the same genus with the
rock-pigeon. The differences between the successive steps in this
series are not greater than those which may be observed between common
dovecot-pigeons (_C. livia_) brought from different countries.

RACE VIII--INDIAN FRILL-BACK.

_Beak very short; feathers reversed._

A specimen of this bird, in spirits, was sent to me from Madras by Sir
W. Elliot. It is wholly different from the Frill-back often exhibited
in England. It is a smallish bird, about the size of the common
Tumbler, but has a beak in all its proportions like our short-faced
Tumblers. The beak, measured from the tip to the feathered base, was
only .46 of an inch in length. The feathers over the whole body are
reversed or curl backwards. Had this bird occurred in Europe, I should
have thought it only a monstrous variety of our improved Tumbler; but
as short-faced Tumblers are not known in India, I think it must rank as
a distinct breed. Probably {154} this is the breed seen by Hasselquist
in 1757 at Cairo, and said to have been imported from India.

RACE IX.--JACOBIN. (Zopf or Peruecken-Taube: Nonnains.)

_Feathers of the neck form