274 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail 

 of a hen pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing 

 feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously streaked, somewhat 

 like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it with my verdict, 

 that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock 

 pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the 

 keeper who brought it, he told me that some pea-hens had been known 

 last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts where this mule was 

 found. 



Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed to 

 take an exact copy of this curious bird. 



N.B. It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges have 

 imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or blackcock ; * it is 

 however to be observed, that Mr. W. remarks, that its legs and feet 

 were naked, whereas those of the grouse are feathered to the toes. 



WHITE. 



Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have done laying, 

 sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird," and has given a 

 figure of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian 

 Museum ; and M. Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she 

 has done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." May 

 not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of this kind ] 

 that is, an old" hen pheasant which had just begun to assume the 

 plumage of the cock. MARKWICK. 



* There have been several opinions stated as to whether this bird was a hybrid, 

 or only a young blackcock before it had attained its full plumage. The point at 

 issue is of very little importance, as we know now certainly that a mule occa- 

 sionally takes place between the black grouse and pheasant, and if the red 

 patch represented in the figure to surround the eye has been correctly drawn, 

 the probability is that it was a hybrid. 



The specimen was stuffed and formed part of the museum of the Earl of 

 Egremont at Petworth. This collection was afterwards entirely destroyed by 

 moths or carelessness, and with it the bird in question, so that there is now no 

 means of solving the question by a fresh examination. But Mr. Herbert writes, 

 " I saw this curious bird stuffed in the year 1804, and I have not the slightest 

 hesitation in pronouncing that it was a mule between the blackcock and the 

 common pheasant. I was informed at the time by Lord Egremont that it was 

 Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention, compared 

 it with the description in the ' Naturalists' Calendar, ' and wrote at the moment 

 marginal memoranda on my copy of that book. In Mr. White's description of 

 that bird, where he says, ' that the back, wing feathers, and tail were somewhat 

 like the upper parts of a hen partridge,' I scratched out at the time, the words 

 ' somewhat like,' and wrote in the margin 'much browner than,' and with that 

 alteration I believe Mr. White's description to be quite correct : but I noted 

 down that the plate was exceedingly ill coloured, which indeed may be perceived 

 by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I now, entertain 

 the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black game and the 

 pheasant. " 



"As I understood that it has been surmised that the hybrid described by 

 White might have been a young blackcock in moult, I wish to state in the most 

 positive manner, that I am certain it was not. I had at the period when I 

 examined it, been in the annual habit of shooting young black game, and was 

 perfectly well acquainted with all their variations of plumage ; and had also been 

 accustomed to see them reared in confinement. It is a point on which I could 

 not be deceived. The bird had neither the legs and feet, nor the plumage of a 

 blackcock in any stage of its growth." 



The above, copied from Mr. Benuet's notes, is the most direct proof we can now 



