Dovecot-pigeons are those which are kept in dovecots in a semi-domesticated state; for no special care is taken of them, and they procure their own food, except during the severest weather. In England, and, judging from MM. Boitard and Corbié's work, in France, the common dovecot-pigeon exactly resembles the chequered variety of _C. livia_; but I have seen dovecots brought from Yorkshire, without any trace of chequering, like the wild rock-pigeon of the Shetland Islands. The chequered dovecots from the Orkney Islands, after having been domesticated by Colonel King for more than twenty years, differed slightly from each other in the darkness of their plumage, and in the thickness of their beaks; the thinnest beak being rather thicker than the thickest one in the Madeira birds. In Germany, according to Bechstein, the common dovecot-pigeon is not chequered. In India they often become chequered, and sometimes pied with white; the croup also, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, becomes nearly white. I have received from Sir J. Brooke some dovecot-pigeons, {186} which originally came from the S. Natunas Islands in the Malay archipelago, and which had been crossed with the Singapore dovecots; they were small, and the darkest variety was extremely like the dark chequered variety with a blue croup from Madeira; but the beak was not so thin, though decidedly thinner than in the rock-pigeon from the Shetland Islands. A dovecot-pigeon sent to me by Mr. Swinhoe from Foochow, in China, was likewise rather small, but differed in no other respect. I have also received, through the kindness of Dr. Daniell, four living dovecot-pigeons from Sierra Leone;[332] these were fully as large as the Shetland rock-pigeon, with even bulkier bodies. In plumage some of them were identical with the Shetland rock-pigeon, but with the metallic tints apparently rather more brilliant; others had a blue croup and resembled the chequered variety of _C. intermedia_ of India; and some were so much chequered as to be nearly black. In these four birds the beak differed slightly in length, but in all it was decidedly shorter, more massive, and stronger than in the wild rock-pigeon from the Shetland Islands, or in the English dovecot. When the beaks of these African pigeons were compared with the thinnest beaks of the wild Madeira specimens, the contrast was great; the former being fully one-third thicker in a vertical direction than the latter; so that any one at first would have felt inclined to rank these birds as specifically distinct; yet-so perfectly graduated a series could be formed between the above-mentioned varieties, that it was obviously impossible to separate them.