NOTES ON A HYBRID. 261 



(of which the third and fourth are the longest), 

 barred or variegated with brownish- white, suggesting 

 the markings of the Pheasant ; tibial joints and tail, 

 which is broad and fan-shaped, have the feathers 

 mottled, shading into black at the extremities ; red 

 skinny spaces at the eyes as in the Blackcock ; feet 

 and cla^vs as in the Pheasant. 



The two birds, although strongly resembling each 

 other, differ more particularly in the colouring of 

 the feathers on the lower surface of the body. 

 These, in the bird first killed, are barred with white 

 and brown, suggesting the normal markings of the 

 Pheasant; while, on the bird that longest escaped 

 the gun, the variegated feathers have been replaced 

 by others wholly bluish-brown, doubtless having 

 their origin in the male parent, — indeed, the valua- 

 tion of the plumage in its change towards the adult 

 state shows a tendency towards the sable colouring 

 of the Blackcock and the obliteration of the reddish 

 hues of the Pheasant. 



The habits of these birds hardly differed from 

 those of the birds among Avhich they were reared, 

 except that they were shyer, and wandered further 

 from the feeding-ground of the keeper. 



In 1871 I recorded in the Zoologist the occurrence 

 in Aberdeenshire of a hybrid between a male 

 Pheasaut and a barn-door fowl. This bird, like 

 the subject of our notice, partook more of the 

 character of the male than of the female parent, 

 and wns predatory in its habits. It wandered far 

 from its roosting-ground,— much further than the 

 Pheasants among ^vhich it was bred. It Avas some- 

 times absent for a whole week during the day-time, 

 but generally returned at night to roost, i^erching 

 on the tallest in the group of trees surrounding the 

 quaint house of Tillery where it was hatched. 



At an early age it evinced an unsociable and cruel 

 disposition towards the birds —fowls and Pheasants 

 — among which it was reared, and would suffer 

 none of them to come near it. In the spring fol- 



