102 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE COVERT. 
mongrels, which increase so rapidly that Mr. Gould considers in twenty years’ time 
it will be difficult to find a true species in this country. This, however, he regards 
as of little moment, as fresh birds can always be obtained from their native 
countries, Asia Minor, China, and Japan. All naturalists, however, are not of Mr. 
Gould’s opinion. Mr. Blyth informed me that the P. versicolor and P. torquatus 
are kept distinct in two neighbouring copses at Lord Craven’s, not intermixing, 
although at a comparatively short distance from each other, and that he believes, 
although these species will cross when in confinement, that in the open country 
the birds of each species would select their proper mates and produce pure bred 
offspring. 
The cross between the Japanese and common pheasant is a bird of brilliant 
plumage, easy to rear, of greater size than the average of English birds, and the 
flesh is very tender and well flavoured. In Norfolk this very beautiful cross was 
introduced some few years back by Mr. J. H. Gurney, who bred most successfully, 
both at Haston and Northrepps, from the birds he obtained at the Knowsley sale 
and the common pheasant (though chiefly with the ring-necked cross), and produced 
magnificent specimens; the eggs being greatly sought after by other game preservers 
in this district, the race soon spread throughout the county. “From personal 
observation and inquiry, however,’ writes Mr. Stevenson, “during the last two 
or three years, it appears evidences of this cross, even in the coverts where these 
hybrids were most plentiful, are now scarcely perceptible; the strong characteristics 
of the Chinese bird apparently absorbing all the less marked, though darker tints of 
the Japanese. One of these birds, killed in 1853, weighed upwards of four and a 
half pounds, and many examples, which were stuffed for the beauty of their 
plumage, will be found in the collections of our country gentlemen.” 
The absorption of the Japanese in the more common race is not surprising, 
when the small interfusion of new blood is taken into consideration, but with the 
fresh introduction of new blood, and the care in the preservation of the cross-bred 
birds, there can be no doubt a permanent breed would result, bearing the same 
relation to the pure bred Japanese that the common ring-neck does to the pure 
blooded Chinese species. + 
