mbled, or perhaps been a little
superior to, the Carriers, previously described, which are now found in
Persia. In England at the present day "there are," as Mr. Eaton[358]
states, "beaks that would measure (from edge of eye to tip of beak) one
inch and three-quarters, and some few even two inches in length."

From these historical details we see that nearly all the chief domestic
races existed before the year 1600. Some remarkable only for colour appear
to have been identical with our present breeds, some were nearly the same,
some considerably different, and some have since become extinct. Several
breeds, such as Finnikins and Turners, the swallow-tailed pigeon of
Bechstein and the Carmelite, seem both to have originated and to have
disappeared within this same period. Any one now visiting a well-stocked
English aviary would certainly pick out as the most distinct kinds, the
massive Runt, the Carrier with its wonderfully elongated beak and great
wattles, the Barb with its short broad beak and eye-wattles, the
short-faced Tumbler {212} with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its
great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail with its upraised,
widely-expanded, well-feathered tail, the Turbit with its frill and short
blunt beak, and the Jacobin with its hood. Now, if this same person could
have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and by
Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin with a less perfect
hood; the Turbit apparently without its frill; the Pouter with shorter
legs, and in every way less remarkable--that is, if Aldrovandi's Pouter
resembled the old German kind; the Fantail would have been far less
singular in appearance, and would have had much fewer feathers in its tail;
he would have seen excellent flying Tumblers, but he would in vain have
looked for the marvellous short-faced breeds; he would have seen birds
allied to barbs, but it is extremely doubtful whether he would have met
with our actual Barbs; and lastly, he would have found Carriers with beaks
and wattle incomparably less developed than in our English Carriers. He
might have classed most of the breeds in the same groups as at present; but
the differences between the groups were then far less strongly pronounced
than at present. In short, the several breeds had at this early period not
diverged in so great a degree from their aboriginal common parent, the wild
rock-pigeon.

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