OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 389 



along just before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a con- 

 siderable distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off, 

 but not out of the field : on this the dog returned to me, near 

 which *place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the 

 old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again to us, 

 settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and 

 tumbling about, drew off his attention from her young, and thus 

 preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a 

 kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old 

 birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all 

 their might to preserve their brood. MARKWICK. 



A HYBRID PHEASANT. 



Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious 

 bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of 

 his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, air, 

 and habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed 

 well with the appearance of a cock pheasant; but then the head, 

 and neck, and breast, and belly were of a glossy black : and though 

 it weighed three pounds three ounces and a half, 5 " the weight of a 

 full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on 

 the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long 

 ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers and therefore it 

 could be nothing of the grouse kind. In the tail were no bending 

 feathers such as cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic 

 of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen 

 pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing, 

 feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously streaked 

 somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it 

 with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen 

 bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. 

 When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me 

 that some pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the 

 coppices and coverts where this mule was found. 



* Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces 



