422 The Natural History of Se I borne 



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 charac- 

 teristic 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 em- 

 ployed 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. WHITE. 



Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have done 

 laying, sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird," and 

 has given a figure of the male- feathered pea-hen now to be 

 seen in the Leverian Museum ; and M. Salerne remarks, that 

 " the hen pheasant, when she has done laying and sitting, will 

 get the plumage of the male." May not this hybrid pheasant 

 (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of this kind ? that is, an old 

 hen pheasant which has just begun to assume the plumage of 

 the cock. MARKWICK. 



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 



