; but the naked patches on the
wings are absent. One of my birds measured 381/2 inches from tip to tip
of wing. By taking the length of the body as the standard of
comparison, the two wings were no loss than 5 inches longer than those
of the rock-pigeon! The tail was 61/4 inches in length, and therefore 21/4
inches longer than that of the Scanderoon,--a bird of nearly the same
size. The beak is longer, thicker, and broader than in the rock-pigeon,
proportionally with the size of body. The eyelids, nostrils, and
internal gape of mouth are all proportionally very large, as in
Carriers. The foot, from the end of the middle to end of hind toe, was
actually 2.85 inches in length, which is an excess of .32 of an inch
over the foot of the rock-pigeon, relatively to the size of the two
birds.

_Sub-race III. Spanish and Roman Runts_.--I am not sure that I am right
in placing these Runts in a distinct sub-race; yet, if we take
well-characterized birds, there can be no doubt of the propriety of the
separation. They are heavy, massive birds, with shorter necks, legs,
and beaks than in the foregoing races. The skin over the nostrils is
swollen, but not carunculated; the naked skin round the eyes is not
very wide, and only slightly carunculated; and I have seen a fine
so-called Spanish Runt with hardly any naked skin round the eyes. Of
the two varieties to be seen in England, one, which is the rarer, has
very long wings and tail, {144} and agrees pretty closely with the last
sub-race; the other, with shorter wings and tail, is apparently the
_Pigeon Romain ordinaire_ of Boitard and Corbie. These Runts are apt to
tremble like Fantails. They are bad flyers. A few years ago Mr.
Gulliver[285] exhibited a Runt which weighed 1 lb. 14 oz.; and, as I am
informed by Mr. Tegetmeier, two Runts from the south of France were
lately exhibited at the Crystal Palace, each of which weighed 2 lbs. 21/2
oz. A very fine rock-pigeon from the Shetland Islands weighed only 141/2
oz.

_Sub-race IV. Tronfo of Aldrovandi_ (Leghorn Runt?).--In Aldrovandi's
work published in 1600 there is a coarse woodcut of a great Italian
pigeon, with an elevated tail, short legs, massive body, and with the
beak short and thick. I had imagined that this latter character, so
abnormal in the group, was merely a false representation from ba