" Pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan in
India, about the year 1600; never less than 20,000 pigeons were taken
with the court. "The monarchs of Iran and Turan sent him some very
rare birds;" and, continues the courtly 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 be obvious when we treat of
Selection. We shall then, also, see how it is that the breeds 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, knowing well how true they bred, I felt
fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever 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
large groups of birds, in nature. One circumstance has struck me much;
namely, that all the breeders of the various domestic animals and the
cultivators of plants, with whom I have ever 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.
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