What is true of pigeons is also true largely of most of the other races associated with man—of cats, cattle, horses, sheep, swine, goats, fowls, and the like. All varieties of the domestic chicken—the clumsy Cochin with its feather-duster legs, the tall and stately Spanish, the great-crested Minorca, the Dorking with its matchless; comb and wattle, the almost combless Polish, the blue Andalusian, the gigantic Brahma, the tiny Bantam, the Wyandottes in all colours (black, white, buff, silver, and golden), the magnificent Plymouth Rocks, and the exceedingly pugnacious Game-cock—these and dozens of other varieties, all flightless, have come from the jungle-bird whose morning clarion still greets Aurora from the wilds of distant India. The dog is a civilised wolf, and the wild-boar is the progenitor of the oleaginous swine. The Merino and South Down breeds of sheep have come from the same stock in the last century and a half. In 1790 a lamb was born on the farm of Seth Wright in Massachusetts. It had a long body and short, bowed legs. It was noticed that this lamb could not follow the others over the fences. The owner thought it would be a good thing if all his sheep were like it. So he selected it to breed from. Some of its offspring were like it, and some were like the ordinary sheep. By continual selection of those with long bodies and short legs the ancon breed of sheep was finally produced. In 1770 in a herd of Paraguay cattle a hornless male calf appeared, and from this individual in a similar way came the stock of Muleys. The occasional appearance of horned calves and lambs among the offspring of hornless breeds of cattle and sheep are examples of atavism indicating the presence of a vestigial tendency to breed true to their horned ancestors. The Hereford cattle originated as a distinct variety about 1769 through the careful selections of a certain Englishman by the name of Tompkins. All domesticated quadrupeds, except the elephant, have come from wild species with erect ears, the ears acting as funnels to harvest the sound-waves. But there are few of them in which there is not one or more varieties with drooping ears—cats in China, horses in parts of Russia, sheep in Italy, cattle in India, and pigs, dogs, and rabbits in all long-civilised lands. We are so accustomed to seeing dogs and pigs with pendent ears that we are surprised to know there are varieties with erect ears. The goldfish is a carp, and in its native haunts in the waters of China it has the colour of the carp. The golden hue seen in the occupants of our aquaria has been given to this fish by the Chinese through the continual selection of certain kinds. The goldfish, almost as much as the pigeon, has been the sport of fanciers, and the strangest varieties have resulted. Some have outlandishly long fins, while others have no dorsal fin at all. Some are streaked and splotched with gold and scarlet; others are pure albinos. One of the most monstrous varieties has a three-lobed