Note 22 — Chapter VI · PIGEONS—continued.

Domestic pigeons pair readily with the allied C. œnas (Bechstein, ‘Naturgesch. Deutschlands,’ B. iv. s. 3); and Mr. Brent has made the same cross several times in England, but the young were very apt to die at about ten days old; one hybrid which he reared (from C. œnas and a male Antwerp Carrier) paired with a Dragon, but never laid eggs. Bechstein further states (s. 26) that the domestic pigeon will cross with C. palumbus, Turtur risoria, and T. vulgaris, but nothing is said of the fertility of the hybrids, and this would have been mentioned had the fact been ascertained. In the Zoological Gardens (MS. report to me from Mr. James Hunt) a male hybrid from Turtur vulgaris and a domestic pigeon “paired with several different species of pigeons and doves, but none of the eggs were good.” Hybrids from C. œnas and gymnophthalmos were sterile. In Loudon’s ‘Mag. of Nat. Hist.,’ vol. vii. 1834, p. 154, it is said that a male hybrid (from Turtur vulgaris male, and the cream-coloured T. risoria female) paired during two years with a female T. risoria, and the latter laid many eggs, but all were sterile. MM. Boitard and Corbié (‘Les Pigeons,’ p. 235) state that the hybrids from these two turtle-doves are invariably sterile both inter se and with either pure parent. The experiment was tried by M. Corbié “avec une espèce d’obstination;” and likewise by M. Mauduyt, and by M. Vieillot. Temminck also found the hybrids from these two species quite barren. Therefore, when Bechstein (‘Naturgesch. Deutschlands Vögel,’ B. iv. s. 101) asserts that the hybrids from these two turtle-doves propagate inter se equally well with pure species, and when a writer in the ‘Field’ newspaper (in a letter dated Nov. 10th, 1858) makes a similar assertion, it would appear that there must be some mistake; though what the mistake is I know not, as Bechstein at least must have known the white variety of T. risoria: it would be an unparalleled fact if the same two species sometimes produced extremely fertile, and sometimes extremely barren, offspring. In the MS. report from the Zoological Gardens it is said that hybrids from Turtur vulgaris and suratensis, and from T. vulgaris and Ectopistes migratorius, were sterile. Two of the latter male hybrids paired with their pure parents, viz. Turtur vulgaris and the Ectopistes, and likewise with T. risoria and with Columba œnas, and many eggs were produced, but all were barren. At Paris, hybrids have been raised (Isid. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, ‘Hist. Nat. Générale,’ tom. iii. p. 180) from Turtur auritus with T. cambayensis and with T. suratensis; but nothing is said of their fertility. At the Zoological Gardens of London the Goura coronata and victoriæ produced a hybrid which paired with the pure G. coronata, and laid several eggs, but these proved barren. In 1860 Columba gymnophthalmos and maculosa produced hybrids in these same gardens.