Birds. 153 



either. However, it may not be uninteresting to you, as in a 

 great measure connected with your subject, to mention a cir- 

 cumstance which recently came to my knowledge. My friend, 

 Sir John Ogilvy, who has lately been staying with us, told me 

 that, last year, when riding at Halnaker Park, in Sussex, he 

 saw a pheasant with a long thin substance in its beak, and, 

 upon his making towards the bird, he flew off and dropped 

 his prey, which turned out to be a slowworm or blindworm 

 (^"nguis fragilis). The pheasant has, by this anecdote, been 

 proved to prey on serpents ; and, if it be true of the pheasant, 

 why should it not be true of the peacock, for they are both 

 species of the same order, Gallinae?" 



Some of the Habits and Anatomical Conditions of a Pair of 

 hybrid Birds, obtained from the Union of a Male Pheasant 

 "with Hens of the Bantam Fond; and an incidental Notice of a 

 hybrid Dove, — Sir, I send you a ^^vf particulars relating to 

 the habits of a handsome pair of hybrid birds lately pre- 

 sented to the Cambridge Philosophical Society by my father, 

 J. P. Henslow, Esq., who furnished me with these details 

 from his personal observations. I shall also subjoin a few 

 anatomical remarks upon them, which were forwarded to me 

 by Mr. Leadbeater ; who stuffed the specimens for us, and 

 who had sent the bodies, divested of their skins, to an ana- 

 tomical friend for examination. I am. Sir, yours, &c. — 

 J. aS. Henslow, Cambridge, April 8. 1833. 



J. P, Henslow^ s Account of their Habits, — After having 

 been several years disappointed in obtaining hybrids from the 

 pheasant and common fowl [adults], I procured a brace of 

 young pheasants, a cock and hen. These were brought up 

 with four young smooth-legged hen bantams of the same age, 

 in an enclosure of about 30 ft. by 10 ft. 1 purposely confined 

 them in this small space, to create familiarity,which was effected; 

 and the hen pheasant, the succeeding summer, laid many 

 eggs, about one dozen of which proved good ; the bantams 

 also laid, and about eighteen of their eggs proved good. The 

 hybrids produced from these eggs were thriving, when a 

 thunder-storm destroyed one half, and a cat killed all the 

 remainder, except the two now sent to the Society. These 

 were reared, and they proved to be a cock and a hen. In the 

 succeeding summer (1829), the hen showed inclination to sit; 

 but as the cock did so likewise, which seemed to disturb her, 

 I removed her to a separate shed ; and she took to a nest of 

 eleven eggs, which I put for her in a corner ; but, from what 

 cause I know not, none of these eggs were hatched. Pre- 

 viously to the next summer (1830), I provided them a small 

 enclosure ; and, when I perceived the same inclination to sit. 



