208 



THE AMERICAN POULTERER'S COMPANION. 



Give a small portion of boiled rice during the 

 moult. If they should get the roup, give them 

 fresh curd every day; a little curd and ants' 

 eggs should be given to them twice a day in 

 addition to their other food. Keep their vessels 

 clean ; and, if the disease still continues, give 

 them every second day a small dose of garlic in 

 a, little fresh butter. They are subject to be 

 vent-bound, which, if not attended to, will kill 

 them. To remedy this take a pair of sharp 

 scissors, cut close the down or feathers about 

 the vent, and anoint it with sweet-oil, and be 

 attentive that it be kept clean, otherwise y,ou 

 can not rear them ; but in handling them, be 

 particularly cautious that you do it with the 

 greatest delicacy, as the least rough treatment 

 will kill them. If they have a scouring the 

 curd will cure it." 



Although it is rather difficult to effect a cross 

 between the pheasant and our domestic fowl, it 

 has nevertheless, in several instances, been 

 done; but beyond a first cross, the thing is 

 generally regarded as impracticable. Poultry 

 have been kept on the borders of a wood abound- 

 ing with pheasants, and occasionally a few half- 

 breed birds are procured. We will enumerate 

 some of them. Sir William Jardine had a 

 specimen of the cross in his possession, exhibit- 

 ing all the mixed characters in perfection. M. 

 Temminck also records a solitary instance of a 

 mule between the female common pheasant and 

 the male golden pheasant, which presented a 

 curious but splendid mixture ; all his endeavors, 

 however, to procure a second specimen were 

 ineffectual. The common pheasant breeds also 

 freely with the ring-necked bird, and the off- 

 spring is productive ; which by some is regarded 

 as a proof that these two birds are identical. 



" It is well known," says a writer in an En- 

 glish journal, " that the male pheasant frequent- 

 ly visits the hens in the poultry-yards adjoining 

 preserves (or it may be vice versa), and in my 

 own limited experience I know instances in 

 which very good varieties of layers have been 

 obtained by this means. In the autumn of 

 1846 I saw a large flock of poultry in a farm- 

 yard close to a preserve of Lord Hatherton's, 

 which was well stocked with pheasants, and the 

 results of the cross between these birds and the 



domestic fowls were very obvious. The poultry 

 had originally been a mixed variety, bearing no 

 resemblance whatever to the pheasant breed. 

 In the cross to which I refer, the male birds 

 generally show the greatest resemblance to the 

 pheasants, and in one or two instances that I 

 have noticed, the plumage was strictly similar 

 to that of the cock pheasant." 



We are informed, on the best authority, that 

 many of the birds which compose the gallina- 

 ceous order appear to be less difficult to be 

 brought to unite with strange species, than those 

 of any other. From the great majority of pheas- 

 ants, mongrels may be thus produced. 



THE COCK OF THE PLAINS. 



This species, which is a native of the barren, 

 arid plains along the River Columbia and the in- 

 terior of North California, appears to have been 

 first recorded by Lewis and Clarke, and has 

 been described by Mr. Douglass, who found it 

 among the Rocky Mountains. From the slen- 

 der form of the quill feathers of the wings and 

 those of the tail, the flight of this species is 

 slow, unsteady, and accompanied by a whirring 

 sound. "When startled," says Mr. Douglass, 

 " the voice 'Cuck, chuck, cuckT- is like that of 

 the common pheasant. They pair in March and 

 April. Small eminences on the banks of streams 

 are the places usually selected for celebrating 

 the weddings; the time generally about sun- 

 rise. The wings of the male are lowered, buzz- 

 ing on the ground; the tail spread like a fan, 

 somewhat erect ; the bare, yellow ossophagus is 

 inflated to a prodigious size fully half as large 

 as his body in marked contrast with the scale- 

 like feathers below it on the breast and the flex- 

 ile silky feathers on the neck, which on these 

 occasions stand erect. In this grotesque form 

 he displays, in the presence of his intended 

 mate, a variety of attitudes. His love-song i.-> 

 a confused, grating, but not offensively disagree- 

 able tone something that we can imitate, but 

 have a difficulty in expressing ' Hurr, hurr- 

 hurr-hurr-r-r-r-hj ending in a deep hollow tone, 

 not unlike the sound produced by blowing into 

 a large reed. The hen builds her nest on the 

 ground, under the shade of pursia and artemi- 

 sia, or near streams, among Phalaris arundi- 



