CHAP. II.] IN THE YOUNG OF VARIOUS CREATURES. 67 the young one as a European Hen does of its chick.”* The Kangaroo, an animal which uses an almost convulsive mode of progression on its two hind legs, and would undoubtedly be seriously hindered and endangered by arriving at a gravid state, as heavy as that which is attained by quadrupeds that go on all-fours, has been relieved by the wisdom of its Creator from the impeding burden and incumbrance at a very early stage, and ordained to bring forth its young small and immature. But a warm pouch has been prepared for their reception, and as to themselves and their organs, they want but one-a mouth wherewith to imbibe milk: they seem to be all mouth; they secure themselves so firmly to the nipple, that they are not readily detached from it; in other respects they are, for some time, little more than shapeless lumps of living flesh. All that is wanted for their safety and their sustenance, is granted them abundantly. And little Pigeons, to which we have at last arrived, in our survey, are, like the young Kangaroos, provided with a disproportionately large, soft, absorbent mouth or bill-the very thing they want, in order to live by suction on the milky aliment secreted by the parent birds. The bill of a young Pigeon is a ridiculously prominent feature, a laughable caricature of what we might suppose a bill ought to be. In new-hatched squeakers it measures a considerable part of the creature's whole length; a frightfully ugly appendage in the eyes of whoever forgets to observe the exact fitness with which it is adapted to the end in view, namely, to be the instrument of rearing a feeble nestling to attain the independent condition of a robust adult. * Gould's Introduction to the Birds of Australia, p. 85. Now let us suppose any of these peculiarities of imperfect organization to be changed or reversed,-that the mouth of the Foal was twice as convenient as it is for draining the udder of its dam, but that its legs were only half as capable of keeping company with her progress over the prairies,—that the gallinaceous birds, which make their nest on the hard earth, and are rough in their motions, and scratch, never gently, with their feet, that they had laid eggs as unwieldy and fragile as those which the Megapodidae or Brush Turkeys drop and then bury in a soft stratum of sand and grass,that the preponderance of growth in the young Pigeon, instead of being directed to its bill, had been bestowed upon strengthening its legs, or quickly pluming its. wings, suppose any such alterations as these, and what fearful disasters would ensue! So that even what we call imperfect organization is made to subserve a wise purpose; out of weakness and deficiency are brought forth strength to the individual, security and permanence to the race; just as in the moral world, what at the time are often thought afflictions hard to bear, prove in the end to have been the steps leading to future welfare. The study, too, of these incomplete commencements of existence in all animated beings, and of the way in which that very incompleteness is made to answer a purpose, must, one would say, prove that "the progression of forms," "the evolution of species," and their advancement by some innate energy of their own, or some law" of nature, from fishes to reptiles, from reptiles to birds and quadrupeds, from quadrupeds to quadrumans or monkeys, and from monkeys to human beings with a reasoning soul, is an error as complete as 66 CHAP. II.] INFERENCE. 69 is the "creation of species by Man" of the continental naturalists. When Man sets to work to create a species of sentient animal, he manages it so well, that his results are of a very short-lived nature. And if Man bungles and mismanages his work so badly, the convenient Goddess Chance, is not likely to succeed much better. Proposed classes.-Ambiguous nomenclature.-The question of origin.-Ground of the received opinion little investigated by naturalists.-Estimate of Temminck's authority.-Difficulties and doubts suggested by the accounts of former ornithologists -The reader to sum up the evidence.-Scheme of arrangement. As it is our object to consider these birds mainly in reference to their actual or possible domesticability, it will be found most convenient to arrange them into three classes; the first consisting of those which are found in the domestic state only, and never met with wild. It is a mistake to suppose that any of the Fancy Pigeons ever become even feral. A few half-breeds between them and either the Blue Rock, or the Dove CHAP. III.] PROPOSED CLASSES. 71 house Pigeon, may, very rarely, assume an independent mode of life; but wild Fantails, or Nuns, or Powters, or Jacobins, are things unheard of. Our second class will embrace those Pigeons which are found both in the domestic and the wild state. These are the birds that seem now and then to oscillate between the abodes of men and the solitude of cliffs and mountains. The third class will comprise those which appear quite incapable of domestication, and are only to be retained in captivity by strict aviary confinement, without which restraint they would immediately fly back to their woods and wildernesses. It is possible that a few domesticable birds, whose tempers have as yet been untried, may be included in this third class, which is so large, embracing such a number of species, that we can only just touch upon some of them in the present volume. It will be seen also that this arrangement does not in the least clash with the classification of the systematic Naturalist, but is quite independent and irrespective of it. At this early stage of our history we may be asked, and may as well endeavour to answer the question, what is the distinction between the words Pigeon" and "Dove."* Pigeon is of Gallic, Taube (pronounced 66 * The name of the Pigeon, like that of several of our other domestic birds, has been used by voyagers, in the poverty of their ornithological vocabulary, to denote certain species of oceanic waterfowl. Thus we often read of the Greenland Dove; but the only Dove which can support the rigorous climate of Greenland is a Gull subsisting on fish, blubber, or the lower marine animals. We often in childhood, while reading Cook's and still earlier voyages, have been struck with the mention of Port Egmont Hens, and wondered whether the Hens which our sailors were so delighted to find in antarctic regions, were as pretty as our neighbour's Bantams, and whether the Port Egmont Cocks, which we took for granted to exist in due proportion to the Hens, were as splendid as the red game fowls with which we were acquainted. The charm is dispelled by |