Turtle Doves
Selective breeding of pigeons began in India, as the records seem to show, more than two thousand years ago. Though other animals have been brought to domestication at much earlier times, this appears to have been the first of them to be subjected to deliberate efforts on the part of their masters, which were intended to bring about in a methodical way certain changes in their forms and habits. The most curious part of this great endeavor which has been applied to breeding pigeons is found in the fact that the ends sought have no utility, but afford satisfaction from the point of view of pure diversion or the gratification of taste. We are well accustomed to the action of such motives upon our flowering plants of the garden, but the pigeon is the only animal where fancy has labored for thousands of years for its gratification. The breeders of pigeons from remote antiquity to the present day appear to have had no definite purpose in all their pains. They have taken the chance variations in form and habit and endeavored to extend these sports of nature by a careful system of mating those in which the singular features were most evident. Thus the fan-tail breed has been developed until the creatures display their unornamental tail feathers with all the dignity with which a peacock shows his marvellous decorations. The pouters have in some unaccountable way learned to take air into their crop; and the habit has been developed by selection until the bird destroys all trace of his original shapeliness, though he seems to take pride in his diseased appearance. The tumbler, probably derived from some ancestor afflicted with a disease of an epileptic character, manages to go through his convulsions in the air without serious consequences and apparently with some pleasure to himself. There are over one hundred less conspicuous varieties, of which only one deserves notice, and this for the reason that it has some possible utility to man and is now much attended to. This is known as the carrier pigeon.
The Giant Crowned Pigeon of India
In early time, before the invention of the railway and telegraph, some ingenious breeder of pigeons, observing the constant way in which these creatures returned to the place where they were bred, invented the plan of using them to convey information. This service was found convenient not only for ordinary correspondence, but was exceedingly valuable where a place was beleaguered by an enemy. In such cases carrier pigeons could often be used to convey information across the otherwise impassable lines. Even in modern times, as, for instance, during the last siege of Paris, these swift and sure flying birds proved of great use in keeping up communications between the people of the invested town and the French armies in the field. Letters in cipher, sometimes photographed down until the characters were microscopically fine, were made into packages of small weight in order not to impede the flight of the bird, carefully affixed to its body, and thus sent away. Very generally these curious shipments came to the hands of those for whom they were destined. The birds can be trusted to fly at night; they retain for a long time the memory of their home, and spare no pains to return to it.
The homing power of the carrier pigeon appears to be a special development of a natural capacity, as is also its swiftness and endurance in flight. Our other breeds and the wild species whence they have all come are not disposed to undertake long journeys; they rarely, indeed, wander far from their abiding places. Our experience with the carriers shows how readily the creatures may be educated to perform feats which they were not accustomed to do in their wild state. Something of the same elasticity of constitution may be observed in the bodies of our pigeons as they have been affected by selection. Not only has the plumage been greatly altered by the breeder's art and in pursuance of his plans, but the form and proportions of the bones have coincidently and unintentionally been greatly changed. So considerable are these alterations that if these creatures were submitted for dissection to a naturalist who knew nothing of the history of the bird, he would have no hesitation in classing them as belonging not only in different species, but as members of diverse genera.
It must be regarded as unfortunate that the experiments which have been made on pigeons have been limited to their features of form, color, and slight peculiarities in their habits. If the breeders had sought to modify the intellectual parts with anything like the insistence which they have given to the development of these bodily peculiarities, we might now have a most valuable store of knowledge as to the limitations of animal minds. The facts gained in the breeding of the carriers show clearly that certain of the instincts of these birds can be readily modified. There is every reason to suppose that their mental capacities in other directions have something of the same pliability.
