162 Elliot <?« Hybridism. [April 



Among the species, so-called, described from hybrids I may 

 mention Fuligula ferinoides^?iX\\&t'(. (P. Z. S. 1847, p. 48) and 

 F. homeyeri Biideker (Naumannia, 185 1, pp. 12-15). These 

 were afterwards shown to be hybrids between Fuligula ferina 

 and F. nyroca. An analogous example is now before me of a 

 cross between Aythya valisneria and Aythya collaris. I exhib- 

 ited this specimen with others at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society of London, and a poor figure is given of it in the P. Z. S. 

 i860, pL clxvii. It is there erroneously called a cross be- 

 tween A. americana and A. collaris. Its great length of bill 

 and extent and depth of coloring of the neck show the Canvas- 

 back derivation and not the Redhead. Anas breiveri (Audu- 

 bon, B. of Am. Vol. VI, p. 252) is, again, an instance of crossing 

 between A. boschas and A. strepera, and interbreeding has oc- 

 curred so frequently in this family that M. de Selys-Long- 

 champs in 1856 (Bull. Acad. Roy. de Bruxelles, Tom. XXIII, 

 No. 7) was able to record no less than forty-four different crosses 

 among its meinbers. 



In the Phasianidas, as in other families of gallinaceous birds, 

 hybridism is often met with, and especially among certain 

 of its species. Thus Fuplocamtts lineatus, found in Tenasserim, 

 Pegu, and Siam, interbreeds with E. horsjieldl., a resident of 

 Assam and neighboring provinces, and the two species pass com- 

 pletely one into the other in the province of Arakan. In like 

 manner E. albocristatus., ranging in the northwest Himalayas as 

 far as Nepaul, interbreeds in the last province with E. jnelan- 

 onotus., which is fovmd in Sikkim and Butan. In the domestic 

 and semi-domestic state, as observed in England, the offspring of 

 two or three introduced species are fertile, but these are mongrel 

 races, not strictly hybrids, and are perpetuated by the infusion 

 of fresh blood. 



When speaking of hybrids, this term is meant to define those 

 individuals which are the direct offspring of two distinct species, 

 each possessing in equal degree the blood of both parents. It 

 is such creatures, which may be termed complete hybrids., that 

 it is believed are not fertile beyond the second genera- 

 tion. But it is not yet, I believe, conclusively proved that 

 such a complete hybrid may not be fertile when mated with 

 a pure-blooded bird of one or the other of the species from 

 which it descended, and their progeny, being three quarters pure 



