PHEASANT. 369 



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netted to ascertain what it was. It measured thirty- 

 two inches from the tip of its beak to the extremity of 

 the tail, stood nineteen inches from the sole of the 

 foot to the crown of the head, and weighed seven and 

 three-quarter pounds. In its general appearance it had 

 a strange admixture of both pheasant and fowl, and 

 was not unlike a capercally cock about the head and 

 neck. The legs were clean and strong without spurs, 

 and decidedly galHnaceous in character ; the beak large 

 and powerful, and the tail long and rounded, with the 

 middle feathers somewhat the longest. The plumage 

 may be described as of a rich glossy green about the 

 head, neck aU round, and the upper part of the 

 breast ; back and wings mottled with rich dark chesnut, 

 glossed here and there with green and each feather 

 tipped with a metallic shade of green. The lower parts 

 of the back and upper tail-coverts more green than 

 black; under parts brown, dashed with buffy- white in 

 places. Tail feathers black, slightly marked on some 

 of the webs, longitudinally, with dull white, or slightly 

 freckled. In November of the same year, Mr. Sayer 

 had also, from Lord Rendlesham's preserves, another 

 strange hybrid, apparently a cross between a pheasant 

 and a black bantam fowl. Its plumage was black 

 aU over, with dark green reflections, the tail being 

 shaped like a pheasant's, but the legs and feet resemb- 

 ling those of a common fowl. Hen pheasants assuming 

 the cock's plumage, commonly caUed *^ mules," are not 

 unfrequently met with. This abnormal condition being 

 observable in immature as well as adult females is not, 

 as was formerly supposed, the result of extreme age, 

 but is attributable no doubt, as stated by Yarrell, to 

 a diseased condition of the generative organs. Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney, in the " Zoologist" (p. 4252), has recorded 

 an instance in which a red-breasted merganser, with 

 much black about the head, and externally presenting 

 3b 



