| → since they were domesticated they could all have descended 1861 |
| they could ever have descended 1859 |
| they could have descended 1860 |
| since they had been domesticated they had all proceeded 1866 1869 1872 |
|
| → and 1859 1860 1861 |
| or both from a common parent-stock, and 1866 1869 1872 |
|
|
historian, "His Majesty by crossing the breeds, which method was never practised before, has improved them astonishingly." About this same period the Dutch were as eager about pigeons as were the old Romans. The paramount importance of these considerations in explaining the immense amount of variation which pigeons have undergone, will
obvious when we treat of Selection. We shall then, also, see how it is that the
so often have a somewhat monstrous character. It is also a most favourable circumstance for the production of distinct breeds, that male and female pigeons can be easily mated for life; and thus different breeds can be kept together in the same aviary. |
|
| I have discussed the probable origin of domestic pigeons at some, yet quite insufficient, length; because when I first kept pigeons and watched the several kinds,
how
they
I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that
→since they were domesticated they could all have descended
from a common parent, as any naturalist could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to the many species of finches, or other
groups of birds, in nature. One circumstance has struck me much; namely, that
the breeders of the various domestic animals and the cultivators of plants, with whom I have
conversed, or whose treatises I have read, are firmly convinced that the several breeds to which each has attended, are descended from so many aboriginally distinct species. Ask, as I have asked, a celebrated raiser of Hereford cattle, whether his cattle might not have descended from
→and
he will laugh you to scorn. I have never met a pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or rabbit fancier, who was not fully convinced that each main breed was descended from a distinct species. Van Mons, in his treatise on pears and apples, shows how utterly he disbelieves that the several
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