332 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



St. Bernard as well as with the great Danish coach-dog ; I bred from the 

 largest bitch of the latter description I ever saw in my life, but her 

 whelps, generally speaking, were worth nothing ; one only which in shape 

 followed the sire was good for anything, and that I gave away. By these 

 crosses I have produced enormous dogs ; but if two of the crosses met, 

 the want of the thorough breed on one side or the other made every 

 litter deteriorate. Nature draws a line, and tells the breeder, unmistak- 

 ably, that he shall breed dogs to a certain size, and no larger. Those of 

 my readers, therefore, who wish to breed good dogs, must never go 

 beyond one cross, but that effected, the next must go back either on the 

 part of the sire or the dam, to a pure race. 



In breeding those beautifully -plumaged birds the hybrids, mules 

 between the cock-pheasant and the bantam or common barn-door fowl, or 

 the game hen, they can only be bred from the male of the pheasant ; it is 

 extraordinary, the curious facts as to these birds that I have elicited. It 

 was at one time affirmed by naturalists, that no bird that had not laid 

 eggs, would sit. The hybrids, who are mules to all intents and purposes, 

 will sit without laying, and hatch the eggs of other fowls, and be to the 

 chickens the best of mothers. 



The first instance I had of this was in a small aviary into which I had 

 put a hen hybrid, who had lost a foot in a rabbit trap, as nothing could 

 keep her from straying. I found her one morning sitting in a corner, 

 and thought she was ill. At feeding-time she came out of the corner very 

 hungry, and, having fed, returned to the corner again. I could not 

 make this out at first ; but on watching her I saw that in the corner was 

 an oyster-shell, the white side uppermost, and this she took great care of, 

 and sat on it as an egg. If, when she came off to feed, I displaced the 

 shell, she always put it back again underneath her, just as the common 

 fowl would do by an egg. Having ascertained that she was sitting, fearful 

 that she might not sit the usual period, I took from under a bantam five 

 eggs that only wanted five days of hatching, and placed them under her. 

 She hatched them all, and, on being put into a coop, reared the chickens 

 after the most approved fashion, keeping to her charge until they grew so 

 completely to maturity that they deserted her. The second instance was 

 in a larger aviary, in which I was breeding from a cock-pheasant and 

 bantam hens. I had put three hybrids in the same aviary for safety, and 

 one of them took to sitting. She hatched four or five chickens from eggs 

 put under her in the same way, and proved a most excellent foster-mother. 

 Although these hybrids now are at large round my house, they never in 

 that way have attempted to sit ; it has only been in aviaries where they were 

 confined, and where, I am perfectly certain, they never laid an egg. I 

 see no reason why a mule should not lay, because hens will lay without a 

 male bird, though the egg will come to nothing, but so far as my long 



