268 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



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

 ployed to take an exact copy of this curious bird. 



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 quali- 

 fied 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 de- 

 pend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.f 



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 saw no gravels among the 

 food : perhaps the shell snails might perform the functions of 

 gravels or pebbles, and might grind one another.^ Land-rails 

 used to abound formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean fields 



and black grouse which I have seen was a female, in which the tarse was feathered half way 

 down; but, as mule productions are not always exactly intermediate, there is nothing so very un- 

 common about its appearance. In his sixth Letter to Mr. Pennant, Mr.White states, that black 

 game were formerly common in VVolmer-ibrest, and mentions also that a solitary female had been 

 seen some years previously. Such an individual might be expected to produce a hybrid with a 

 male pheasant, where none of her own species remained in the neighbourhood. ED. 



* 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 had just begun to 

 assume the plumage of the cock. MARKWICK. 



t I have known a bird of this species to have been shot in mid-winter, in good condition ; and 

 there are two or three instances of their haring been found torpid not nyberuating; but 1 have 

 also known one to alight in spring upon the deck of an Indiumnn coming up the channel, and 

 it is now well known that by ftr the greater number migrate. A very few remain and build in 

 Surrey, but in summer they are much more plentiful in the northern and midland counties. ED. 



t Sir W. Jardiue has taken a field mouse from the stomach of this species. ED. 



