Thursday Birdblogging

Darwin did a lot of research on pigeons.

Not only do they breed at a satisfactory rate, they have such a lovely coo. That's my opinion, not research.

The birds on display are all types of fancy pigeons Darwin raised at Down House. Raising the animals—all these breeds are descended from the rock dove—was a popular hobby of the day. Breeders competed to produce varieties with a particular color or beak shape, and Darwin did the same. At one point his flock grew to 90 birds.

But Darwin was interested in evolution, not pigeon shows. He wanted a sense of how much variation existed within a single type of animal in nature. Breeding animals—selecting and perpetuating desired traits—was a sped-up version of the process that gave rise to new species in nature, he thought. Much more than a hobby, Darwin's pigeon work was a way to demonstrate how dramatic the effects of selection could be.