176 Birds I Have Kept. 



no egg made its appearance, and one morning I found the 

 poor hen dead, with her bald head split open, and all the 

 feathers torn off her back. 



Yes: he did it, the wretch! there was no doubt about that, 

 for there was blood on the end of his yellow beak, and on 

 his feet, and I felt terribly tempted to wring his beautiful 

 neck, but refrained for my own sake, not for his. 



I haTe said he was a coward, and so he was; for he per- 

 mitted a cock Eedrump Parrakeet that iuhabited the same 

 enclosure to drive him about, without attempting the least 

 resistance; and when later on I introduced some bantam 

 pullets to his company in lieu of his murdered wife, they led 

 him such a life, that I should think he must have felt sorry 

 for what he had done. 



Hybrids between a common fowl and a Pheasant are not 

 uncommon, but are sterile; whereas crosses between different 

 species of Pheasants are fertile, whether among themselves, 

 or with the parent stock on either side; from which I take 

 it that the Pheasant and the fowl, though both supposed to 

 belong to the same family, are not descended from "a common 

 ancestor", though the different sorts of Pheasants possibly 

 may. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 



THE SIBBON-FINGH. 



THIS curiously marked Sparrow, for it is nothing else, is 

 very commonly called by the repulsive name of "Cut- 

 throat", in consequence of a red mark that encircles the throat 

 of the male: a peculiarity which has given rise to the more 

 euphonious German name of Bandfitik; its scientific appellation 

 is Spermestes fasciata; but the French, like ourselves, see a 



