Dr Morton on Hybrid Animals and Plants. 279 



served in the Leverian Museum at Oxford. A similar ex- 

 ample is again recorded by Mr Eyton, in his History of the 

 rarer British Birds, in which five individuals were produced.* 



Further, the common ring-pheasant of England is now as- 

 certained to be a hybrid between the Phasianus colchicus and 

 P. torquatus of China. This cross is very prolific, and is said 

 to be spreading faster than the ordinary breed. t In fine, we 

 are informed, on the best authority, that " many of the birds 

 which compose the gallinaceous order, appear to be less dif- 

 ficult to be brought to unite with strange species, than those 

 of any other order. From the great majority of the phea- 

 sants, mongrels may be thus produced. All the hoccos 

 (Crax) will couple in a state of domestication ; the pheasant 

 will ally with the cock ; the last with the turkey, with which, 

 also, the hoccos, born in the domestic state, will also unite. 

 It appears, in fact, very possible to produce mongrels from 

 the major part of those Gallinse which are susceptible of cul- 

 tivation." J 



Hybrids of the Fringillidw. — The Finch family furnishes 

 another example of an extensive amalgamation of species, 

 and a remarkable series of prolific hybrids. Thus, according 

 to Bechstein, the redpole {Fringilla linarid) will breed with 

 the goldfinch, linnet, and canary ; while the cross bebveen 

 the latter and the goldfinch is capable of reproduction. 



The Citril finch {F. citrinella), also, readily pairs with thei 

 canary, and gives rise to a fertile offspring ; and, indeed, so 

 remarkable is the fecundity of these hybrids, and the ease 

 with which they reproduce with the goldfinch, bullfinch, and 

 greenfinch, that M. Veilliot, in order to account for a pheno- 

 menon that conflicted with the prevalent opinion of the ste- 

 rility of all hybrids, assumed that the F. citrinella and F. ca- 

 naria were not distinct species, but only two races that had 

 sprung from the same stock ; and that one having colonized 

 in Europe, and the other in the Canary Islands, their differ- 



* Proceedings of the Zoolog. Society of London, 1835. 

 t Rennie, in Montagu's Ornithological Diet., p. 424. 



X Griffith's Cuvier, viii., pp. 173, 175, 176 ; Prichard, Researches, &c., i., 

 p. 140. 



