ure; and then, on the acknowledged principle of admiring
extremes, having gone on breeding, without any thought of the future, as
good birds as they could,--carrier-fanciers preferring {221} long beaks
with much wattle,--barb-fanciers preferring short thick beaks with much
eye-wattle,--and runt-fanciers not caring about the beak or wattle, but
only for the size and weight of the body. This process will have led to the
neglect and final extinction of the earlier, inferior, and intermediate
birds; and thus it has come to pass, that in Europe these three races are
now so extraordinarily distinct from each other. But in the East, whence
they were originally brought, the fashion has been different, and we there
see breeds which connect the highly modified English carrier with the
rock-pigeon, and others which to a certain extent connect carriers and
runts. Looking back to the time of Aldrovandi, we find that there existed
in Europe, before the year 1600, four breeds which were closely allied to
carriers and barbs, but which competent authorities cannot now identify
with our present barbs and carriers; nor can Aldrovandi's runts be
identified with our present runts. These four breeds certainly did not
differ from each other nearly so much as do our existing English carriers,
barbs, and runts. All this is exactly what might have been anticipated. If
we could collect all the pigeons which have ever lived, from before the
time of the Romans to the present day, we should be able to group them in
several lines, diverging from the parent rock-pigeon. Each line would
consist of almost insensible steps, occasionally broken by some slightly
greater variation or sport, and each would culminate in one of our present
highly modified forms. Of the many former connecting links, some would be
found to have become absolutely extinct without having left any issue,
whilst others though extinct would be seen to be the progenitors of the
existing races.

I have heard it remarked as a strange circumstance that we occasionally
hear of the local or complete extinction of domestic races, whilst we hear
nothing of their origin. How, it has been asked, can these losses be
compensated, and more than compensated, for we know that with almost all
domesticated animals the races have largely increased in number since the
time of the Romans? But on the view here given, we can understand this
apparent contradiction. The extinction of a race within historical t