103

Cervus campestris spotted white when a fawn compare with fallow? deer & Moschus &c. &c. - like young blackbirds

Dr Bachman told me that 1/2 Muscovy & common duck were often caught wild off coast of America - showing that hybrids can fare for themselves first year the bird fanciers match their birds to see which will sing longest & they in evident rivalry sing against each other, till it has been known one has killed itself.

Sir J. Sebright has almost lost his Owl-Pidgeons from infertility, — Yarrell says in such case they exchange birds with some other fancier, thus getting fresh blood without fresh feather & consequent trouble in obliterating the fresh feather by crossing.

(Q)

104

It seems from Lib. of Useful Knowledge that sheep originally black & Yarrell thinks the occasional production of black lambs is owing to old return. The Rev. R. Jones told me precisely the same story about southern, see p. 43 supra, breed of cattle with white heads, which years afterwards occasionally went back - (Effect of imagination on mother white peeled rods mentioned in old Testament placed before sheep it has been thought that silver pheasants about a house made other pheasants have white feathers.).

It certainly appears in domesticated animals that the amount of variation is soon reached - as in pidgeons no new races.