430 ON VARIOUS PARTS 



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 eovey 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, a the weight of a large 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 grous kind. In the tail were no long 

 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 pro- 

 bably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock 

 pheasant and some domestic fowl. When 1 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 em- 

 ployed to take an exact copy of this curious bird, 



a Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces. 



