A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct".

them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease; an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the summer duck (Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an oak tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with, I suppose not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being the most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned.-MARKWICK.

6 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man,

FF

HYBRID PHEASANT.

LORD STAWELL sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, and air, and habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a cock pheasant: but then the head and neck, and breast and belly, were of a glossy black and though it weighed three pounds three ounces and a half, the weight of a large full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers; and therefore it could be nothing of the grous kind. In the tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing-feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me that

to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges; the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing and flew still farther off, but not out of the field: on this the dog returned to me, near which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about drew off his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood.-MARKWICK.

7 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.

some pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts where this mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird.

[It ought to be mentioned that some good judges have imagined this bird to have been a stray grous or black cock; it is, however, to be observed, that Mr. W. remarks, that its legs and feet were naked, whereas those of the grous are feathered to the toes.-J. A.]8

8 Dr. Latham observes, that “pea-hens, after they have done laying, sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird,” and has given a figure of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian Museum; and M. Salerne remarks, that "the hen pheasant, when she has done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." May not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of this kind? that is, an old hen pheasant which had just begun to assume the plumage of the cock.— MARKWICK.

Concerning the hybrid pheasant, see the account by John Hunter, in the Philosophical Transactions, Art. xxx. 1760. "The subject of the account is a hen pheasant with the feathers of the cock. The author concludes, that it is most probable that all those hen pheasants, which are found wild, and have the feathers of the cock, were formerly perfect hens, but that now they are changed with age, and perhaps by certain constitutional circumstances." It appears, also, that the hen taking the plumage of the cock is not confined to the pheasant alone, it takes place equally with the pea-hen, as was seen in the specimen belonging to Lady Tynte, when in the Leverian Museum. After many broods, this hen took much of the plumage of the cock, and also the fine train belonging to that bird. See also Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary, Art. Pheasant.-MITFORD.

I saw this curious bird stuffed, in the collection of the Earl of Egremont at Petworth, in the year 1804, and I have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing that it was a mule between the black cock and the common pheasant. I was informed at the time by Lord Egremont that it was Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention, compared it with the description in the Naturalist's Calendar, and wrote at the moment marginal memoranda on my copy of that book. In Mr. White's description of the bird, where he says that the back, wingfeathers, and tail, were somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge, I scratched out, at the time, the words, "somewhat like," and wrote in the margin "much browner than," and with that alteration I believe Mr. White's description to be quite correct; but I noted down that the plate was exceedingly ill coloured, which indeed may be per. ceived by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I now, entertain the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black game and the pheasant. I understand that some doubt exists at present

LAND-RAIL.

A MAN brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so rare in this district that we seldom see more than one or two in a season, and those only in autumn. This is

whether it was Mr. White's identical specimen, though I am quite positive from my notes that it was at the time (now above thirty years ago) stated to me to have been so; and I am persuaded that it was his: but if there was any misunderstanding on that point, and it could have been a second specimen killed in the same line of country, there is not the slightest doubt that it was of like origin and appearance, for I had no exceptions to take to White's description, except that the back was much browner than that of a partridge instead of somewhat like, which is not in fact contradictory. The whole of Lord Egremont's collection was afterwards destroyed by maggots, and the specimen has long ceased to exist.

As I understand it has been surmised that the hybrid bird described by White might have been a young black cock in moult, I wish to state, in the most positive manner, that I am certain it was not. I had, at the period when I examined it, been in the annual habit of shooting young black game, and was perfectly well acquainted with all their variations of plumage; and had also been accustomed to see them reared in confinement. It is a point on which I could not be deceived. The bird had neither the legs and feet, nor the plumage, of a black cock in any stage of its growth.-W. H.

Evidence more direct than that given in the preceding note by the Hon, and Rev. W. Herbert can now, it should seem, scarcely be adduced towards the decision of the somewhat vexata quæstio as to the hybrid pheasant of White. In the destruction of Lord Egremont's collection at Petworth by the moths, the bird described by Mr. Herbert perished with the rest; and the notes made by him, with the specimen before him, are all that is now accessible regarding it. But these notes furnish an authentic record of its existence and appearance at the time of his visit. If there were not a possibility that some misconception might have existed as to the identity of the specimen with the bird seen by White, there could no longer remain the slightest ground for doubt upon the subject.

But the absolute determination of the nature of the bird in question is of less importance in itself than by the discussions to which it has given rise, and which have led to the ascertaining of various collateral facts of interest, and to rendering them popularly known. Three opinions have been advanced with respect to it, and each has had its advocates. It may be advantageous to refer to them in succession, and to offer a few remarks upon them.

The first theory propounded on the subject regards the bird as a hybrid between the pheasant and some other species; a view which is entitled to great respect, independent of all other considerations, on account of its having been entertained by White, whose opportunities for judging

deemed a bird of passage by all the writers: yet from its formation seems to be poorly qualified for migration;

respecting it surpassed those of later observers, he having seen the bird when it was first shot. He, however, looked upon it as a mule with some domestic fowl, such as the pea-hen: a parentage which no subsequent naturalist has attributed to it; those who have considered it as a hybrid bird from the pheasant having joined with that bird, like Mr. Herbert, the black game. And the glossy black of the fore and under parts, and the white spot on the shoulder, are marks so characteristic of the black game as scarcely to leave a doubt that that bird had some share at least in the production. We know well that hybrids between the pheasant and the black game are at times produced, and two such have been exhibited to the Zoological Society on different occasions, and from different parts of the country; one of them having been killed in Cornwall, and the other in Leicestershire. The latter was described by Mr. Eyton, in whose collection the specimen is preserved; and as his description enters into more particulars of this curious mule than any that has yet been published, I extract it from the Proceedings of the Society.

"For some years past a single gray hen has been observed in the neighbourhood of the Merrington covers, belonging to Robert A. Slaney, Esq. but she was never observed to be accompanied by a black cock, or any other of her species. In November last a bird was shot on the manor adjoining Merrington, belonging to J. A. Lloyd, Esq. resembling the black game in some particulars, and the pheasant in others. In December another bird was shot in the Merrington covers, resembling the former, but smaller: it is now in my collection, beautifully preserved by Mr. Shaw of Shrewsbury. It is a female, and may be thus shortly described:

"Tarsi half-feathered, without spurs, of the same colour as in the pheasant. Bill resembling that of the pheasant, both in colour and shape. Irides hazel. Crown and throat mottled black and brown. Neck glossy black, with a tinge of brown. Breast of nearly the same colour as that of the cock pheasant, but more mottled with black. Tail of the same colour as in the gray hen; middle tail feathers longest; under tail coverts light brown.

"The plumage of this bird is very curious; as some parts of it resemble either sex of both black game and pheasant.

"I had an opportunity of examining the body after it was taken from the skin, and of comparing it with the black game and the pheasant, and the following are some remarks which I made on its anatomy:

"Left oviduct very imperfect; the ovaries very small; the eggs scarcely perceptible, and very few in number.

"The sternum approaches nearer to that of the black grous than of the pheasant; but the bone is not so massive, the anterior edge of the keel is more scolloped, and the bone between the posterior scollops is not so broad as in the black game. The os furcatorium is that of the pheasant, being more arched than in the black game, and having the flat process at the extremity next the sternum broader. The pelvis is exactly intermediate between the two, having more solidity, and being both broader