_Sub-race II. Pigeon cygne and Pigeon bagadais of Boitard and Corbié_
(Scanderoon of French writers).—I kept two of these birds alive,
imported from France. They differed from the first sub-race or true
Scanderoon in the much greater length of the wing and tail, in the beak
not being so long, and in the skin about the head being more
carunculated. The skin of the neck is red; but the naked patches on the
wings are absent. One of my birds measured 38½ inches from tip to tip
of wing. By taking the length of the body as the standard of
comparison, the two wings were no less than 5 inches longer than those
of the rock-pigeon! The tail was 6¼ inches in length, and therefore 2¼
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, proportionally to the relative 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-characterised 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, 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 Corbié. These Runts are apt to tremble
like Fantails. They are bad flyers. A few years ago Mr.
Gulliver[11] exhibited a Runt which weighed 1 pound 14 ounces; 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 pounds 2½ ounces. A very fine rock-pigeon from the
Shetland Islands weighed only 14½ ounces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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