BIRDS. 439 



embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and 

 can hardly be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, 



middle of the back, lower sides of the neck, sides and middle of the belly, 

 breast, cheeks, chin, and tail, black. A stripe on each side of the middle 

 of the belly, uniting on the breast, and passing up the neck on its under 

 side to the throat; the borders of the breast feathers under the wings ; and 

 the upper sides of the neck, extending from above the eyes to the back ; 

 brown, with black and dusky bars and tips. The crown^and a stripe ex- 

 tending all down the back of the neck, the rump, and tail coverts, dusky 

 black, freckled with dark chocolate brown. Primaries, dusky with pale 

 freckled tips and edges ; their shafts white. Secondaries, dusky freckled 

 with brown, the basal half (forming the wing spot) and the tips white ; 

 their shafts black. Primary wing coverts dusky black, white at the base. 

 Spurious quills black, the second and third with a white spot at the base 

 of the outer web. Scapularies and upper wing coverts dusky black 

 freckled and mottled with chocolate brown, margined towards the body 

 with a few lighter brown feathers which are spotted and barred with 

 black. Under wing, and under tail coverts white. Vent and legs dirty 

 grayish white with dusky bars, becoming darker on the tarsus. Toes 

 and back of the tarsi naked. Beak and claws black." 



The writer of this description so warmly advocates his view of the case 

 that he remarks, " There can be no doubt that this bird, a little earlier 

 in the season, is the hybrid of White : I say a little earlier, on account 

 of the tail, which has moulted off black. But even in its present state, 

 as regards shape, the tail proves much. White distinctly says it had * no 

 long bending feathers such as cock pheasants usually have:' now all the 

 hybrids from the pheasant that I have seen have those produced feathers. 

 When closed, the tail in my bird is shorter than the tail of a hen phea- 

 sant, and blunt and square at the end : and this description of the tail, 

 especially when closed, is that of White's bird ; for the lateral feathers 

 being but slightly produced or recurved at this age, have a blunt ap- 

 pearance and the middle feathers are square. White says, i the head 

 and neck and breast and belly were of a glossy black/ This certainly is 

 not the case with the representation of the bird. Yet this very circum- 

 stance proves the identity of the hybrid with the young black cock. For, 

 placing the bird on its back, the throat, and the lower sides of the neck, 

 breast, and belly are visible, < black and glossy.' This is precisely what 

 White describes. But the painter laid the bird on its side, and repre- 

 sented the upper side of the neck, which is mouse brown with dusky bars 

 at the tips ; and he showed the partridge-like wing falling over the breast. 

 Thus this seeming incongruity between the description and the repre- 

 sentation is satisfactorily accounted for, and is indeed a proof of the 

 identity of the bird. The wings are exact to the description : and it is 

 remarkable that they agree particularly as regards the wing spot, and 

 also in the white spot on the spurious quills. From White's description 

 of the bird I should conclude that he looked at it in a hurry, which may 

 possibly account for the description of the feet and legs. The back of 

 the tarsi and the toes are naked in my bird, and the front of the tarsus is 



