[313] It perhaps deserves notice that besides these five birds two of the eight were barbs, which, as I have shown, must be classed in the same group with the long-beaked carriers and runts. Barbs may properly be called short-beaked carriers. It would, therefore, appear as if, during the reduction of their beaks, their wings had retained a little of that excess of length which is characteristic of their nearest relations and progenitors.
[314] Temminck, 'Hist. Nat. Gén. des Pigeons et des Gallinacés,' tom. i., 1813, p. 170.
[315] This term was used by John Hunter for such differences in structure between the males and females, as are not directly connected with the act of reproduction, as the tail of the peacock, the horns of deer, &c.
[316] Temminck, 'Hist. Nat. Gén. des Pigeons,' &c., tom. i. p. 191.
[317] I have heard through Sir C. Lyell from Miss Buckley, that some half-bred carriers kept during many years near London regularly settled by day on some adjoining trees, and, after being disturbed in their loft by their young being taken, roosted on them at night.
[318] 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' 2nd ser., vol. xx., 1857, p. 509; and in a late volume of the Journal of the Asiatic Society.
[319] In works written on the pigeon by fanciers I have sometimes observed the mistaken belief expressed that the species which naturalists call ground-pigeons (in contradistinction to arboreal pigeons) do not perch and build on trees. In these same works wild species resembling the chief domestic races are often said to exist in various parts of the world, but such species are quite unknown to naturalists.
[320] Sir E. Schomburgk, in 'Journal R. Geograph. Soc.,' vol. xiii., 1844, p. 32.
[321] Rev. E. S. Dixon, 'Ornamental Poultry,' 1848, pp. 63, 66.
[322] Proc. Zoolog. Soc., 1859, p. 400.