The principle of correlation of growth should never be lost sight of. Most pigeons have small feet, apparently caused by their lessened use, and from correlation, as it would appear, their beaks have likewise become reduced in length. The beak is a conspicuous organ, and, as soon as it had thus become perceptibly shortened, fanciers would almost certainly strive to reduce it still more by the continued selection of birds with the shortest beaks; whilst at the same time other fanciers, as we know has actually been the case, would, in other sub-breeds, strive to increase its length. With the increased length of the beak, the tongue would become greatly lengthened, as would the eyelids with the increased development {219} of the eye-wattles; with the reduced or increased size of the feet the number of the scutellæ would vary; with the length of the wing the number of the primary wing-feathers would differ; and with the increased length of the body in the pouter the number of the sacral vertebræ would be augmented. These important and correlated differences of structure do not invariably characterise any breed; but if they had been attended to and selected with as much care as the more conspicuous external differences, there can hardly be a doubt that they would have been rendered constant. Fanciers could assuredly have made a race of tumblers with nine instead of ten primary wing-feathers, seeing how often the number nine appears without any wish on their part, and indeed in the case of the white-winged varieties in opposition to their wish. In a similar manner, if the vertebræ had been visible and had been attended to by fanciers, assuredly an additional number might easily have been fixed in the pouter. If these latter characters had once been rendered constant we should never have suspected that they had at first been highly variable, or that they had arisen from correlation, in the one case with the shortness of the wings, and in the other case with the length of the body.