62 



of the hedge to that on which he was, on the outside of a large covert : 

 he did not see it distinctly ; but as in rising it made the sort of cry 

 or crowing which a cock-pheasant is apt to do when disturbed, he 

 shot it. I found it hung up in the larder, but was just in time to 

 rescue it from the cook, and Mr. Halsey allowed me to take posses- 

 sion of it to be preserved. There is no doubt of its being a hybrid 

 between the black-cock and hen-pheasant, as it appears that a black- 

 cock has for the last two years frequented this particular covert and 

 fed with the pheasants. The keeper, after feeding his pheasants, has 

 frequently hid himself, to count his stock of those beautiful birds, 

 and always saw this black-cock come to feed with them ; and so it 

 lasted for two years or more. I have no doubt that this bird is the 

 produce of his intimacy with a hen-pheasant. The old black-cock 

 used to play like a cock-turkey, the keeper tells me, dragging his 

 vrings, and could drive all the cock-pheasants, being completely master 

 over them ; which I wonder at, as the pheasant has spurs and he 

 has none. The hybrid was shot on the 26th of October, and had he 

 lived another month, would have been a beautiful bird. You will 

 observe that he crowed on rising as a cock -pheasant does, which I 

 believe a black-cock does not do. As far as I can ascertain in the 

 number of instances of hybrids mentioned in Yarrell's 'British Birds,' 

 they seem all to be the produce of cock-pheasants and grey-hens, 

 whereas there is no doubt this is the reverse. 



" I may mention while on this subject, that in another wood on 

 Mr. Halsey's property two Hybrids were produced between the cock- 

 pheasant and hen golden pheasant ; this took place about thirteen 

 years ago. A hen golden pheasant had escaped from confinement, 

 and it was knovra that she was alive in the coverts ; and in one par- 

 ticular wood it was remarked that the pheasants were always disturbed 

 and driven out of it, and it was not known for some time by what ; 

 till at last, by watching at the feeding-places, it was discovered that 

 this golden hen-pheasant and two other curious-lookmg birds were 

 so pugnacious, that they drove every thing from the place. They 

 were all three shot, when the other two proved to be cock-birds, and 

 there is no doubt whatever of their parentage, both from their shape 

 and plumage. They are small birds and not handsome, partaking 

 of the plumage of both sorts of pheasants, vnthout any of the beauty 

 of either. I believe this to be the first instance on record of their 

 ever breeding in a wild state ; and you must remember that they were 

 not in a Norfolk covert, full of half-tame pheasants, but in one of the 

 vdldest parts of England, as the presence of black-game will tell you. 

 They were shot in the month of November, and therefore had pro- 

 bably got as good plumage as they ever would have. They are now 

 in my possession through the kindness of Mr. Halsey. 



" I think it a very curious circumstance that these birds should have 

 been produced in a vnld state, as I find in the ' Gardens and Mena- 

 gerie of the Zoological Society,' vol. ii. Birds, under the head of 

 Golden Pheasant, that in China, where the two sorts are wild, they 

 have never been known to produce a mixed breed, and that in confine- 

 ment it is sometimes obtained, but vnih the greatest difficulty. Also, 



