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fantail pigeon and a hen of the collared dove, Turtur risorius, it 
being the last survivor of three broods. 
Pheasants have always afforded proofs of hybridization in 
this country. It may be within the memory of many that forty 
years since the common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus, was the 
almost universal species in these isles, the ring-necked form, 
P. torquatus, being comparatively rare, but now the latter has 
almost superseded the former, while strains of many exotic 
species are observable in a single cover. Darwin remarked that 
hybrids from Cervulus vaginalis and Phasianus reevesit, and from 
Phasianus colchicus and P. torquatus are perfectly fertile. 
In September, 1836, Mr Fuller presented two living birds 
to the Zoological Society of London, which were a cross between 
a hybrid common barn door hen (Gallus domesticus,) and a 
pheasant cock, and a pheasant, being a three-quarter bred 
pheasant. At this time the society likewise possessed a similar 
living hybrid (Pro. Zool. Soc., 1836, p. 84), while in their 
Museum were crosses between the pheasant and common fowl, 
the common pheasant and the silver pheasant. Mr Yarrell 
remarked that he had found in hybrids of Gallinaceous birds 
and ducks that the sexual organs of the males were of large 
size, but those of the females deficient and with some appear- 
ance of imperfection. He expressed his belief that the attempt 
to breed from a hybrid was most likely to be successful when a 
male hybrid was put to a female of the true species. In 1851 a 
cross was exhibited between a female golden pheasant (Thaumalea 
picta) and a male common pheasant, reared in a wild state in 
Surrey, not far from the Framley ridges (P.Z.S., 1851, page 61). 
Dr Giinther exhibited at the Zoological Society on June 28rd, 
1887, a hybrid between a male golden pheasant and a female 
Reeves. 
In Cheltenham, Colonel Smyth has instituted some interest- 
ing experiments in hybridizing pheasants during the last four 
seasons. He first crossed the male Amherst with a female 
golden pheasant. Of the hybrid progeny the young males took 
largely after their male parent, except that the crest was more 
a 
