346 
the female is three-fourths dusky duck and one-fourth mallard ” 
(page 66). 
Several instances of blackbirds and thrushes pairing have 
been recorded (see Loudon’s Mag. Nat. Hist., August, 1834; 
Thompson Natural History of Ireland iii., p. 457; Zoologist, 1883, 
p. 123; 1884, p. 186; 1885, pp. 69, 112). 
Mr Potts sent to the Zoological Society, November 18th, 
1884, a nest and eggs of birds from New Zealand, observing 
that the parents were of two different species of Flycatchers of 
the genus Rhipidura, the male being the R. flabellifera, and the 
female the R. fuliginosa, which he had watched nesting together, 
and this not for the first time. 
Among birds, especially finches kept in confinement, many 
interesting facts bearing upon hybridism have been recorded, 
and which seem to have more analogy with what obtains in 
fishes than the instances observed among the higher grades of 
vertebrata. Hybrids have been raised from a hen canary and a 
cock goldfinch : a mule between a canary and goldfinch being a 
male has produced offspring with a hen canary; also hybrids 
have been observed, from a hen canary and a cock siskin, the 
young of this cross resembling the siskin in shape; from a hen 
canary and a linnet. Most of the foregoing have proved fertile, 
and no great difficulty has been experienced in inducing the 
parents to pair, but the difficulty increases in proportion to the 
remoteness of the relationship between the species. A hen 
canary has also been crossed with a bullfinch, but the eggs, 
says Bechstein, seldom prove fruitful; but Dr Jassy found a 
plan of making other canaries sit on the eggs and bring up the 
young. A hen canary paired with a nightingale in Bechstein’s 
presence, but the eggs did not hatch. The reason why the 
canary has been selected as the mother is because she will lay 
her eggs in an artificial nest, which wild birds are not readily 
induced to do. Some, at least, of the foregoing hybrid progeny 
of birds were fertile—as crosses between hen canaries and gold- 
finches, siskins and greenfinches. The first eggs of these 
hybrids were said to be very small, and the young hatched from 
them very weak, but the eggs of the next season were larger 
and the nestlings stronger and stouter, 
