THE AMHERST PHEASANT. 125 
The perpetuation of permanent races produced by the union of two perfectly 
distinct species is well known to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes to those 
facts which do not square with their theories. The late Mr. E. Blyth, a most 
accurate observer, and whose knowledge of species was unsurpassed, informed me that 
over a large extent of India no other domestic goose is known except a cross 
between the Chinese species, the Anser cygnoides, and the domesticated variety of 
the grey-lag, Anser ferus. 
In the case of the true pheasants, Phasianus colchicus, P. torquatus, and P. 
versicolor, every variety of interbreeding takes place, and the intermediate forms can 
be perpetuated as may be desired; or, as was originally the case with the P. 
versicolor in this country, the pure breed can be established from a single 
individual. 
Most naturalists maintain that these three pheasants are perfectly good 
species; but what is the test of a species? For my own part, I am sufficiently 
heterodox in my belief to regard all the true restricted pheasants, such as P. 
colchicus, versicolor, torquatus, shawii, mongolicus, elegans, &c., as mere geographical 
variations of one type, capable of breeding together and perpetuating any cross 
that it may please experimenters to produce; and in the same manner the two 
species of the genus Thawmalea, namely, the Gold and Amherst pheasants, may be 
regarded as geographical races capable of yielding a permanent race intermediate 
between the two. 
These views, which I maintained at the time of the publication of the first 
edition of this work in 1873, have been fully borne out by the experience of the 
past eight years. In March, 1881, Mr. A. D. Bartlett, the superintendent of the 
Zoological Gardens, writes to me :—* The hybrid Amherst and Gold Pheasants breed 
freely inter se; but, as far as I can learn, in most cases the breeders have been 
breeding the half-bred hens with the pure Amherst males, for the purpose of 
obtaining as near as possible the characters of the pure Amherst; and this is very 
quickly accomplished, for in the third generation all traces of the Gold Pheasant 
are lost, or nearly so.” 
