Finally, in regard to the whole group of Tumblers, it is impossible to conceive a more perfect gradation than I have now lying before me, from the rock-pigeon, through Persian, Lotan, and Common Tumblers, up to the marvellous short-faced birds; which latter, no ornithologist, judging from mere external structure, would place in the same genus with the rock-pigeon. The differences between the successive steps in this series are not greater than those which may be observed between common dovecot-pigeons (_C. livia_) brought from different countries. RACE VIII--INDIAN FRILL-BACK. _Beak very short; feathers reversed._ A specimen of this bird, in spirits, was sent to me from Madras by Sir W. Elliot. It is wholly different from the Frill-back often exhibited in England. It is a smallish bird, about the size of the common Tumbler, but has a beak in all its proportions like our short-faced Tumblers. The beak, measured from the tip to the feathered base, was only .46 of an inch in length. The feathers over the whole body are reversed or curl backwards. Had this bird occurred in Europe, I should have thought it only a monstrous variety of our improved Tumbler; but as short-faced Tumblers are not known in India, I think it must rank as a distinct breed. Probably {154} this is the breed seen by Hasselquist in 1757 at Cairo, and said to have been imported from India. RACE IX.--JACOBIN. (Zopf or Perücken-Taube: Nonnains.) _Feathers of the neck forming a hood; wings and tail long; beak moderately short._ This pigeon can at once be recognised by its hood, almost enclosing the head and meeting in front of the neck. The hood seems to be merely an exaggeration of the crest of reversed feathers on the back of the head, which is common to many sub-varieties, and which in the Latz-taube[294] is in a nearly intermediate state between a hood and a crest. The feathers of the hood are elongated. Both the wings and tail are likewise much elongated; thus the folded wing of the Jacobin, though a somewhat smaller bird, is fully 1¼ inch longer than in the rock-pigeon. Taking the length of the body without the tail as the standard of comparison, the folded wing, proportionally with the wings of the rock-pigeon, is 2¼ inches too long, and the two wings, from tip to tip, 5¼ inches too long. In disposition this bird is singularly quiet, seldom flying or moving about, as Bechstein and Riedel have likewise remarked in Germany.[295] The latter author also notices the length of the wings and tail. The beak is nearly .2 of an inch shorter in proportion to the size of the body than in the rock-pigeon; but the internal gape of the mouth is considerably wider. GROUP IV.