_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 bad drawing; but Moore, in his work published in 1735, says that he possessed a Leghorn Runt of which "the beak was very short for so large a bird." In other respects Moore's bird resembled the first sub-race or Scanderoon, for it had a long bowed neck, long legs, short beak, and elevated tail, and not much wattle about the head. So that Aldrovandi's and Moore's birds must have formed distinct varieties, both of which seem to be now extinct in Europe. Sir W. Elliot, however, informs me that he has seen in Madras a short-beaked Runt imported from Cairo. _Sub-race V. Murassa (adorned Pigeon) of Madras._--Skins of these handsome chequered birds were sent me from Madras by Sir W. Elliot. They are rather larger than the largest rock-pigeon, with longer and more massive beaks. The skin over the nostrils is rather full and very slightly carunculated, and they have some naked skin round the eyes: feet large. This breed is intermediate between the rock-pigeon and a very poor variety of Runt or Carrier. From these several descriptions we see that with Runts, as with Carriers, we have a fine gradation from the rock-pigeon (with the Tronfo diverging as a distinct branch) to our largest and most massive Runts. But the chain of affinities, and many points of resemblance, between Runts and Carriers, make me believe that these two races have not descended by independent lines from the rock-pigeon, but from some common parent, as represented in the Table, which had already acquired a moderately long beak, with slightly swollen skin over the nostrils, and with some slightly carunculated naked skin round the eyes. RACE IV.--BARBS. (Indische-Taube: Pigeons Polonais.) _Beak short, broad, deep; naked skin round the eyes, broad and carunculated; skin over nostrils slightly swollen._ [Illustration: Fig. 20.--English Barb.]