4Q4 l-HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. - [aNNO 1/(30. 



that of a hen pheasant, but darker coloured. The feathers of the body are all 

 double ; that is, two distinct feathers proceeding from one stem ; the outer 

 large, and of a firm texture ; the inner smaller, and altogether downy. 



Whether this bird be produced from a turkey-hen and a cock-pheasant, or from 

 a turkey-cock and hen-pheasant, no one knows. Mr. E. thinks it rather from a 

 hen-turkey and cock-pheasant; because their disparity in size is not near so 

 great, as between the turkey-cock and hen-pheasant. Though the supposition 

 that this bird is from an egg laid by a hen-turkey trodden by a cock-pheasant, 

 is attended with a difficulty not easily reconciled ; for it is not probable that a 

 hen-turkey, a domestic fowl, should betake herself to the woods, and bring up 

 her brood wild and unobserved ; which is contrary to the habit of turkeys in our 

 country, where they are not originally natives. Why these mixed generations 

 so rarely happen, is because nature has fixed the inclination of every distinct 

 species to the contrary sex of its own identical species, from which, in a wild 

 and natural state, it will hardly ever stray. The reason of the mixtures that we 

 meet with, contrary to the ordinary course of generation, may proceed from 

 some hindrance of the male's meeting with his proper female, or female with 

 male, at the seasons when they are by nature appointed to propagate their species, 

 which rarely happens ; for in a wild state of nature most animals are numerous, 

 and at their breeding seasons easily meet with males or females of their own 

 species. Disappointments of what they naturally seek, and accidental meetings 

 of different species, near of kin to each other, cause these unnatural conjunc- 

 tions, which produce uncommon mixed species of animals. He believes that 

 two species widely different from each other, as water-fowl and land-birds, &c. 

 cannot possibly conjoin, so as to produce a living mixed offspring. He had 

 been informed, and believed it may be true, that a mixed species has been pro- 

 duced between our common poultry and partridges that harbour near farm- 

 yards. 



LXXIl. On a late Discovery of j4sbestos in France. By Mr, Turhervillc 



ISeedham, F.R.S. p. 837. 



A singular discovery has accidentally been made in one of the French pro- 

 vinces, of the nature of asbestos, or amianthus. The proprietor of a certain 

 forge, on taking down hrs furnaces to repair them, found a great quantity of 

 this substance at the bottom. It answered effectually all the conmion uses of 

 the native amianthus, either manufactured into linen or paper. In short, on a 

 progress in this inquiry, he finds that both this which he obtained fi-om the forge, 

 and the native asbestos, is nothing more as he terms it, than calcined iron de- 

 prived of the phlogistic ; and that by uniting the phlogistic, cither with this or 

 the fossile amianthus, he can restore it at any time to its primitive state of iron. 



