OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 273 



the water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly 

 secure, as will appear from the following circumstance which happened 

 in this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. 

 A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in 

 which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the 

 fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the 

 gander, which being most powerful in its own element, buffeted the 

 fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned. MARKWICK. 



HEN PAETEIDGE. 



A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with 

 her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. 

 While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her 

 brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old 

 fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct. WHITE. 



It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and 

 run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or 

 man, to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I 

 have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance 

 of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a 

 young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges : the 

 old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's 

 nose till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took 

 wing, and flew still farther off, but not out of the field : on this the 

 dog returned to me, near which place the young ones lay concealed in 

 the grass, which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew "iDack 

 again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and 

 tumbling about, drew off his attention from her young, and thus 

 preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has 

 been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at 

 the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to 

 preserve their brood. MARKWICK. 



A HYBRID PHEASANT. 



Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious bird 

 for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in 

 a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, air, and habit of the bird, 

 and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance 

 of a cock pheasant; but then the head and neck, and breast, and 

 belly were of a glossy black : and though it weighed three pounds three 

 ounces and a half,* the weight of a full-grown cock pheasant, yet there 

 were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock 

 pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of 

 feathers and therefore it could be nothing of the grouse kind. In the 

 tail were no bending feathers such as cock pheasants usually have, and 



* Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces. 



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