st
strongly-marked races, namely, carriers and short-faced tumblers, the
extreme forms can be connected with the parent-species by graduated
differences not greater than those which may be observed between the
dovecot-pigeons inhabiting different countries, or between the various
kinds of toy-pigeons,--gradations which must certainly be attributed to
variation.

That circumstances have been eminently favourable for the modification of
the pigeon through variation and selection will now be shown. The earliest
record, as has been pointed out to me by Professor Lepsius, of pigeons in a
domesticated condition, occurs in the fifth Egyptian dynasty, about {205}
3000 B.C.;[346] but Mr. Birch, of the British Museum, informs me that the
pigeon appears in a bill of fare in the previous dynasty. Domestic pigeons
are mentioned in Genesis, Leviticus, and Isaiah.[347] In the time of the
Romans, as we hear from Pliny,[348] immense prices were given for pigeons;
"nay, they are come to this pass, that they can reckon up their pedigree
and race." In India, about the year 1600, pigeons were much valued by Akber
Khan: 20,000 birds were carried about with the court, and the merchants
brought valuable collections. "The monarchs of Iran and Turan sent him some
very rare breeds. His Majesty," says the courtly historian, "by crossing
the breeds, which method was never practised before, has improved them
astonishingly."[349] Akber Khan possessed seventeen distinct kinds, eight
of which were valuable for beauty alone. At about this same period of 1600
the Dutch, according to Aldrovandi, were as eager about pigeons as the
Romans had formerly been. The breeds which were kept during the fifteenth
century in Europe and in India apparently differed from each other.
Tavernier, in his Travels in 1677, speaks, as does Chardin in 1735, of the
vast number of pigeon-houses in Persia; and the former remarks that, as
Christians were not permitted to keep pigeons, some of the vulgar actually
turned Mahometans for this sole purpose. The Emperor of Morocco had his
favourite keeper of pigeons, as is mentioned in Moore's treatise, published
1737. In England, from the time of Willughby in 1678 to the present day, as
well as in Germany and in France, numerous treatises have been published on
the pigeon. In India, about a hundred years ago, a Persian treatise was
written; and the writer thought it no light affair, for he begins with a
solemn invocation, "in the name o