B L A 



483 



B L A 



speckled with gray ; toes pectinated ; tail black the exte- 

 rior feathers bend outwards, and are much longer than those 

 in the middle : this arrangement gives the singular curva- 

 ture and forked shape to the tail which distinguishes the bird. 

 Female. Weight about two pounds ; general colour fer- 

 ruginous, barred and mottled with black above, paler below, 

 with dusky and brown bars ; under tail-coverts white, 

 streaked with black ; tail orange-brown, speckled with black, 

 showing a slight disposition to be forked, tipped with grayish 

 white. 



No person is permitted to kill, destroy, carry, sell, buy, or 

 have in his possession, any heath-fowl, commonly called 

 black-game, between the 10th of December and 20th of 

 August. The limitation in the New Forest, Somerset, and 

 Devon, is greater, being from the 10th of December to the 

 1st of September. 



HYBRIDS. 



There have lately occurred some well authenticated in- 

 stances of hybrids bred between the common pheasant and 

 the gray hen ; but before we enter into the history of "these, 

 we must call the attention of our readers to the celebrated 

 bird sent by Lord Stawell to White for his inspection, and 

 thus described by the latter in his ' Selborne.' 



' 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, 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 ver- 

 dict 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 rnule was found.' 



After stating that Mr. Elmer of Farnham, the famous 

 game painter, was employed to take an exact copy of this 

 curious bird, the note in White proceeds thus : ' N. B. It 

 ought to be mentioned that some good judges have imagined 

 this bird to have been a stray grous or black cock ; it is, 

 however, to be observed that Mr. White remarks that its 

 legs and feet were naked, whereas those of the grous are 

 feathered to the toes. 



To this Markwick appends the following suggestion : 

 ' May not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a 

 bird of this kind : that is, an old hen pheasant, which had 

 just begun to assume the plumage of the cock ?' 



We had always understood that this bird was in tne 

 possession of Lord Stawell, and some recent inquiries 

 tended to corroborate our opinion ; but the Hon. and Rev. 

 W. Herbert says, in a note to the description above given, 

 ' I saw this curious bird stuffed in the collection of the Earl 

 of Egremont at Petworth, and I have not the slightest hesi- 

 tation in pronouncing that it was a mule, between the black 

 cock and the common pheasant. I did not entertain the 

 slightest doubt on the subject : Mr. Markwick's suggestion 

 that the bird may be an old pea-hen is very weak. He 

 might as well have said an ostrich. Neither in size, shape, 

 nor colour had the bird the least affinity to a pea-fowl. I 

 can also most positively assert that this bird was not, as 

 suggested in a note (p. 343), a hen pheasant, with the 

 feathers of a cock. Such birds are well known to me, and 

 it noways resembled them. To Mr. White's description of 

 the bird above, where he says that the back, wing-feathers, 

 and tail were somewhat like the upper parts of a hen par- 

 tridge, I scratched out at the time the words " somewhat 

 like," and wrote in the margin " much browner than," and 

 with that correction I believe Mr. White's description to be 

 quite correct.' (White's Selborne, edit. 1833.) 



Notwithstanding Mr. Herbert's positive opinion that this 

 bird was a mule between the black cock and the common 

 pheasant, Mr. Yarrell, whose clear views of such subjects 

 are well known, and who stated at the Zoological Society's 

 meeting on the 31st of May, 1833, that the hybrid grouse 

 of White's Natural History of Selhonie is believed to be 



a young black cock having nearly completed his first moult 

 still adheres to his statement, and we agree with him. 



We now come to undoubted cases of hybrids arising from 

 a mixture with the gray hen. 



At a meeting of the Zoological Society on the 24th of 

 June, 1834, Mr. Sabine called the attention of the meeting 

 to a specimen of a hybrid bird between the common phea- 

 sant, Phasianus Colchicus, Linn., and the gray hen, Tetrao 

 tetrix, Linn., which was exhibited. Its legs were partially 

 feathered ; it bore on the shoulder a white spot ; and its 

 middle tail-feathers were lengthened. Mr. Sabine stated 

 his intention of entering at some length into the history of 

 hybrid and cross animals in connexion with his description 

 of this bird, which was bred in Cornwall. This bird was a 

 male 



On the 12th of May, 1835, at a meeting of the same 

 society was read ' Some account of a hybrid bird between 

 the cock pheasant, Phasianus Colchicus, Linn., and gray 

 hen, Tetrao tetrix, Linn., by Thomas C. Eyton, Esq. The 

 paper, which was illustrated by the exhibition of the pre- 

 served skin of the bird, and also of a drawing made from 

 it, proceeded as follows : 



' For some years past a single gray hen has been observed 

 in the neighbourhood of the Merrington covers, belonging 

 to Robert A. Slaney, Esq., but she was never observed to 

 be accompanied by a black cock, or any other of her spe- 

 cies. In November last a bird was shot on the manor 

 adjoining Merrington, belonging to J. A. Lloyd, Esq., re- 

 sembling the black game in some particulars, and the 

 pheasant in others. In December another bird was shot in 

 the Merrington covers, resembling the former, but smaller ; 

 it is now in my collection, beautifully preserved by Mr. 

 Shaw of Shrewsbury. 



' The hybrid bird in my possession, which is a female, 

 may be thus shortly described : 



' Tarsi half-feathered, without spurs, of the same coloin- 

 as in the pheasant; bill resembling that of the pheasant 

 both in colour and shape ; irides hazel ; crown and throat 

 mottled black and brown; neck glossy black, with a tinge 

 of brown ; breast of nearly the same colour as that of the 

 cock pheasant, but more mottled with black ; tail of the 

 same colour as in the gray hen ; centre tail-feather longest ; 

 under tail-coverts light brown. 



' The plumage of this bird is very curious, as some parts 

 of it resemble either sex of both black game and pheasant. 



' I had an opportunity of examining the body after it was 

 taken from the skin, and of comparing it with the black 

 game and the pheasant. 



' The following are some remarks which I made on its 

 anatomy : 



' Left oviduct very imperfect ; the ovaries very small ; the 

 eggs scarcely perceptible, and very few in number. 



' The sternum approaches nearer to that of the black 

 grouse than of the pheasant ; but the bone is not so mas- 

 sive, the anterior edge of the keel is more scolloped, and 

 the bone between the posterior scollops is not so broad as in 

 the black game. 



' The os furcatorium is that of the pheasant, being more 

 arched than in the black game, and having the Hat process 

 at the extremity next the sternum broader. 



' The pelvis is exactly intermediate between the two, 

 having more solidity, and being both broader and longer 

 than in the pheasant ; but resembling that of the pheasant 

 in having the two processes on each side of the caudal ver- 

 tebra, which serve for the attachments of the levator mus- 

 :les of the tail. 



' The subjoined table shows some comparative measure- 

 ments between the hybrid bird in question, the cock phea- 

 sant, and the gray hen. 



