nd entirely wanting in others.

Let us begin with pigeons, a very large group, but one that shows more
unity than any of the other Orders into which naturalists divide birds.
It embraces turtle doves of many species, wood pigeons, ground pigeons,
fruit pigeons and some strange forms like the great crowned pigeon of
Victoria. Of all these only one, the common blue rock, has been
domesticated. The ring dove of Asia has been kept as a cage bird for so
long that a permanent albino and also a fawn-coloured variety have been
established and are more common in aviaries than birds of the natural
colour; but the ring dove has not become a domestic fowl, and never
will. In this instance there is a plausible explanation, for the blue
rock, unlike the rest of the tribe, nests and roosts in holes and is
also gregarious; therefore, if provided with accommodation of the kind
it requires, it will form a permanent settlement and remain with us on
the same terms as the honey bee; while the ring dove, not caring for a
fixed home, must be confined, however tame it may become, or it will
wander and be lost.

But this explanation will not fit other cases. What a multitude of wild
ducks there are in Scotland and every other country, mallards, pintails,
gadwalls, widgeons, pochards and teals, all very much alike in their
habits and tastes! But of them all only one species, and that a
migratory one, the mallard, has been persuaded to abandon its wandering
ways and settle down to a life of ease and obesity as a dependant of
man. In India there is a duck of the same genus as the mallard, known as
the spotted-billed duck (_Anas poecilorhynchus_), which is as large as
the mallard and quite as tasty, and is, moreover, not migratory, but
remains and breeds in the country. But it has not been domesticated: the
tame ducks in India, as here, are all mallards. The muscovy duck is a
distinct species which has been domesticated elsewhere and introduced.

From the ducks let us turn to the hens. The partridge, grouse and
pheasant are all dainty birds, but if we desire to eat them we must
shoot them, or (_proh pudor!_) snare them. Plover's eggs are worth four
shillings a dozen, but we must seek them on the moors. The birds that
have covenanted to accept our food and protection and lay their eggs for
our use and rear their young for us to kill are descended from _Gallus
bankivus_, the jungle fowl of Eastern India. How they came here history
records not: perh