THE AMHEEST PHEASANT. 125 



The perpetuation of permanent races produced by the union of two perfectly 

 distinct species is well known to all who do not wUfully 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, Fhasianus 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, elegcms, &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 Thcmnalea, 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 fuUy 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." 



