[Birds of this sub-race, of which I kept one alive and have since seen two
others, differ from the Bagadotten of Neumeister only in not having the
beak nearly so much curved downwards, and in the naked skin round the eyes
and over the nostrils being hardly at all wattled. Nevertheless I have felt
myself compelled to place the Bagadotten in Race II., or that of the
Carriers, and the present bird in Race III., or that of the Runts. The
Scanderoon has a very short, narrow, and elevated tail; wings extremely
short, so that the first primary feathers were not longer than those of a
small tumbler pigeon! Neck long, much bowed; breast-bone prominent. Beak
long, being 1.15 inch from tip to feathered base; vertically thick;
slightly curved downwards. The skin over the nostrils swollen, not wattled;
naked skin round the eyes, broad, slightly carunculated. Legs long; feet
very large. Skin of neck bright red, often showing a naked medial line,
with a naked red patch at the distal end of the radius of the wing. My
bird, as measured from the base of the beak to the root of the tail, was
fully 2 inches longer than the rock-pigeon; yet the tail itself was only 4
inches in length, whereas in the rock-pigeon, which is a much smaller bird,
the tail is 4 5/8 inches in length.
The Hinkel- or Florentiner Taube of Neumeister (Table 13 figure 1) agrees
with the above description in all the specified characters (for the beak is
not mentioned), except that Neumeister expressly says that the neck is
short, whereas in my Scanderoon it was remarkably long and bowed; so that
the Hinkel forms a well-marked variety.]
SUB-RACE 3/II. PIGEON CYGNE AND PIGEON BAGADAIS OF BOITARD AND CORBIE
(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 38 1/2 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 6 1/4 inches in length, and therefore 2
1/4 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 3/III. SPANISH AND ROMAN RUNTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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