BIRDS IN GENERAL 411 



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. 



Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was 

 employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird. 



N.B. — It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges 

 have imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or 

 blackcock ; it is however to be observed, that Mr. W. 

 remarks, that its legs and feet were naked, whereas those 

 of the grouse are feathered to the toes. 



LAND-RAIL 



A man brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so 

 rare in this district that we seldom see more than one or 

 two in a season, and those only in autumn. This is deemed 

 a bird of passage by all the writers : yet from its formation 

 seems to be poorly qualified for migration ; for its wings 

 are short, and placed so forward, and out of the centre of 

 gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embarrassed manner, 

 with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly be sprung a 

 second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend more 

 on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying. 



When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft 

 and tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed 

 like the ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small 

 and lank, containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, 

 and filled with small shell snails, some whole, and many 

 ground to pieces through the attrition which is occasioned 

 by the muscular force and motion of that intestine. We 



