PHASIANHXE. 



The Zoological Society has had exhibited at the evening 

 meetings two instances of success in this sort of second 

 cross. The first was in 1831, when the late Lord Saye 

 and Sele exhibited a specimen of a hybrid Duck, bred 

 between a male Pintail and a Common Duck. It was one 

 of a brood of six, several of which were subsequently con- 

 fined with the male Pintail from which they sprang, and 

 produced young. A specimen of a female of this second 

 brood was also exhibited. Zool. Proceedings for 1831, 

 p. 158. The second instance, though later in date, is 

 more in point. In September, 1836, a communication 

 from Edward Fuller, Esq., of Carleton Hall, near Sax- 

 mundham, was read, which stated that his gamekeeper had 

 succeeded in rearing two birds from a Barn-door Hen, 

 having a cross from a Pheasant, and a Pheasant cock ; that 

 the birds partook equally of the two species in their habits, 

 manners, and appearance, and concluded by presenting them 

 to the Society. The gamekeeper of Edward Fuller, Esq., 

 in a short note which accompanied the birds, stated that 

 he had bred them, and they were three-quarter-bred 

 Pheasants. Zool. Proceedings for 1836, p. 84. Several 

 specimens of hybrids, from the preserved collection in the 

 Museum of the Society, were placed on the table the same 

 evening for exhibition and comparison. These had been 

 bred between the Pheasant and Common Fowl, the Com- 

 mon Pheasant and the Silver Pheasant, and the Common 

 Pheasant with the Gold Pheasant. 



A history of our Pheasant would be incomplete if left 

 without any notice of that remarkable assumption of a 

 plumage resembling the male observed to take place in 

 some of the females, which is well known to sportsmen 

 and gamekeepers, by whom such birds are usually called 

 Mule Pheasants. The name is correct, since some of our 

 dictionaries show that the term mule is derived from a 



