318 PHASIANID.E. 



showed no signs of breeding ; they are considered like other 

 hybrids to be unproductive among themselves, all being 

 half bred ; but when paired with the true Pheasant or the 

 Fowl, the case is different. The Zoological Society has 

 had exhibited at the evening meetings two instances of 

 success in this sort of second cross. The first was in 1831, 

 when the present Lord Saye and Sele exhibited a specimen 

 of a hybrid Duck, bred between a male Pintail and a Com- 

 mon Duck. It was one of a brood of six, several of which 

 were subsequently confined with the male Pintail from 

 which they sprung, and produced young. A specimen of a 

 female of this second brood was also exhibited. Zool. Pro- 

 ceedings for 1831, p. 158. The second instance, though 

 later in date, is more in point. In September 1836, a com- 

 munication from Edward Fuller, Esq., of Carleton Hall, 

 near Saxmundham, was read, which stated that his game- 

 keeper had succeeded in rearing two birds from a Barn- 

 door Hen, having a cross from a Pheasant, and a Pheasant 

 cock ; that the birds partook equally of the two species in 

 their habits, manners, and appearance, and concluded by 

 presenting them to the Society. The gamekeeper of 

 Edward Fuller, Esq., in a short note which accompanied 

 the birds, stated that he had bred them, and they were 

 three-quarter-bred Pheasants. Zool. Proceedings for 1836, 

 p. 84. Several specimens of hybrids, from the preserved 

 collection in the Museum of the Society, were placed on the 

 table the same evening for exhibition and comparision. 

 These had been bred between the Pheasant and Common 

 Fowl, the Common Pheasant and the Silver Pheasant, 

 and the Common Pheasant with the Gold Pheasant. 



A history of our Pheasant would be incomplete if left 

 without any notice of that remarkable assumption of a plum- 

 age resembling the male observed to take place in some of 



