e common rock-pigeon, which
agrees in all its habits of life with the domestic races. The _C. livia_
now exists and flourishes on the small northern islands of Faroe, on many
islands off the coast of Scotland, on Sardinia and the shores of the
Mediterranean, and in the centre of India. Fanciers have sometimes imagined
that the several supposed parent-species were originally confined to small
islands, and thus might readily have been exterminated; but the facts just
given do not favour the probability of their extinction, even on small
islands. Nor is it probable, from what is known of the distribution of
birds, that the islands near Europe should have been inhabited by peculiar
species of pigeons; and if we assume that distant oceanic islands were the
homes of the supposed parent-species, we must remember that ancient voyages
were tediously slow, and that ships were then ill-provided with fresh food,
so that it would not have been easy to bring home living birds. I have said
ancient voyages, for nearly all the races of the pigeon were known before
the year 1600, so that the supposed wild species must have been captured
and domesticated before that date.

_Secondly._--The doctrine that the chief domestic races have descended from
several aboriginal species, implies that several {190} species were
formerly so thoroughly domesticated as to breed readily when confined.
Although it is easy to tame most wild birds, experience shows us that it is
difficult to get them to breed freely under confinement; although it must
be owned that this is less difficult with pigeons than with most other
birds. During the last two or three hundred years, many birds have been
kept in aviaries, but hardly one has been added to our list of thoroughly
reclaimed species; yet on the above doctrine we must admit that in ancient
times nearly a dozen kinds of pigeons, now unknown in the wild state, were
thoroughly domesticated.

_Thirdly._--Most of our domesticated animals have run wild in various parts
of the world; but birds, owing apparently to their partial loss of the
power of flight, less often than quadrupeds. Nevertheless I have met with
accounts showing that the common fowl has become feral in South America and
perhaps in West Africa, and on several islands: the turkey was at one time
almost feral on the banks of the Parana; and the Guinea-fowl has become
perfectly wild at Ascension and in Jamaica. In this latter island the
peacock, also, "ha