yOL. LI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^3 



Petersburg, that it may be frozen by extreme cold ; which makes it unfit for 

 ascertaining the extreme degrees of either. 



LXXI. Of a Bird supposed to be bred betiveen a Turkey and Pheasant.* By 

 Mr. George Edwards, F. R. S. p. 833. 



Mr. E. received this bird from Henry Seymer, Esq. of Handford, near Bland- 

 ford, Dorsetshire, with his letter, dated April 9, 176O: wherein he says. — " I 

 have taken the first safe opportunity of sending the two birds. The large one 

 I verily believe is an accidental cross, as we sportsmen term it, between a phea- 

 sant and turkey. When the bird was just killed, the skin round the eyes was 

 of a pale red-lead colour, and the eyes like a turkey's. As I live near the wood 

 where they were found, I took great pains to get another of them, but was 

 never so lucky as to find one. There were 3 at first, all of which I believe are 

 now destroyed." 



The bird is of a middle size between a pheasant and a turkey-hen, and shaped 

 pretty much like a turkey : the bill, legs, and feet, are black, and shaped like a 

 turkey's ; it has a broad space of bare skin round the eyes, which, when the 

 bird was living, was of a pale red-lead colour ; the eyes like those of a turkey ; 

 the head and half the neck is covered with very short feathers, of a whitish clay 

 colour, with transverse dusky bars, though the throat and fore part of the neck 

 are wholly of a light clay colour. These short feathers occupy the head and that 

 part of the neck which is naturally void of feathers in turkeys. On the lower 

 part of the neck, the breast, and belly, the feathers are much longer, and of a 

 black colour, with a purple and changeable gloss. The thighs and legs on their 

 fore-part a little below the knees are covered with feathers transversely barred 

 with clay colour and black. The back, coverted feathers of the wings and taij, 

 are of a mixed colour, in very fine transverse lines of brown and black, though 

 some of the coverts of the wings and tail have larger transverse bars of the above- 

 said colours ; the greater quills are dusky or black, powdered with small clay- 

 coloured spots ; the inner coverts of the wings have white tips, which hide their 

 bottoms, that are dusky. Recounted 16 feathers in the tail, the outer ones 

 shorter by 2 inches than the middlemost ; their colour is composed of brown 

 and black, mixed transversely, like those on the back, though they are more 

 dusky toward their tips ; the very tips being of a bright brown : the outer bor- 

 ders of the side feathers of the tail are of a bay colour ; the covert feathers be- 

 neath the tail are of an orange colour, crossed with black ; about the vent the 

 feathers are white with dusky spots. The whole upper side nearly resembles 



* This bird is mentioned by most modern ornitholigists 3 who appear to acquiesce in the account 

 and figure of Edwards, and consider the bird as a hybrid production between the common pheasant 

 and turkey. 



