PHEASANT. 217 



and yet that these can be no mule birds is obvious. Every one has 

 heard of white varieties of one species or other of British birds; and 

 in Mr. Bullock's museum, in Piccadilly, there is a white jay, a white 

 cuckoo, a white blackbird, thrush, and lark. But neither the male 

 nor female parent of these birds could have been white, since among 

 British small birds there is not one class or kind of that colour. 

 And mule birds partake of the colour of both parents, as in the in- 

 stance of the young of the goldfinch and canary. It is, therefore, 

 clear, that the white varieties, just mentioned, cannot be mule birds; 

 and, on the other side, if they may be produced white without being 

 mule birds, why may not pheasants ? 



" Thirdly. If white pheasants were mule birds between the fowl 

 and the pheasant, how does it happen that theymule breed between 

 these birds is always white in all parts of the country ? The writer 

 of these remarks has seen two in a nide, and has heard of many other 

 white pheasants. But he never saw or heard of any other variety of 

 the common * pheasant than the pied, or white pheasant. And yet 

 there are fowls of several colours besides white, with which pheasants 

 are likely to mix in the fields ; and the mule production between 

 these fowls and the hen pheasant ought not to be white, but, accord- 

 ing to the established law of nature, they should have a share of the 

 colour of each parent. And thus the mule production, from a barn 

 door cock of anyone of several colours besides white, would be easily 

 distinguished, but particularly if the cock were black. 



" Fourthly. Again, if white pheasants be a mule breed between 

 the barn door cock and the hen pheasant, how is it, that though we 

 often hear of these white pheasants, yet we never hear of a mule 

 bred between the cock pheasant and the hen fowl ? The writer has 

 already spoken of having seen white pheasants, and of having heard 

 of many more, but he never saw or heard of a mule bred between 

 the cock pheasant and the hen fowl. And yet he has seen pheasants 



* Under the description of common pheasant, the writer here in- 

 cludes, for the sake of perspicuity, the ring-necked pheasant, though 

 properly a variety of the common class, but he excludes, of course, 

 all foreign pheasants. Neither is he here speaking of the mule 

 pheasant, so called, which has the plumage of both cock and hen 

 pheasant, and the cause of which phenomenon sportsmen cannot 

 very well determine. 



