White and Pied. 175 



between the white and common pheasant will produce pied 

 when both are pure bred. I have tried the cross in confinement 

 for years, and never produced one pied bird from it ; and before 

 the pied breed was introduced into the preserves here we had 

 an abundance of white cocks and white hens, and, beheving 

 at that time that the pied was the result of a cross between 

 the white and common pheasant, I used to watch the nides of 

 every white hen, and was surprised that in no instance was 

 there one pied chick, though some were white." 



The explanation of the difficulty of breeding pied birds from 

 a white and a coloured parent, and the ease with which ring- 

 necks are produced and perpetuated, is soon given. Eing- 

 necks are derived more or less directly from the P. torquatus, 

 a permanent race that has a strong tendency to reproduce 

 its like ; but white and pied birds are merely accidental 

 variations, and therefore are not prepotent in propagating their 

 like, but have a strong tendency to throw back to the stock 

 from which they were derived. The whiteness of the plumage, 

 indeed, is merely the result of some anaemic condition, which 

 makes for a deficiency in colouring matter in the blood supply 

 of the feathers. Many pheasant breeders have tried, by 

 mating white or pied birds, to produce a permanent strain of 

 white pheasants, but up to now none of them seem to have 

 been successful. The late Earl of Stamford and Warrington 

 tried to breed white pheasants at Enville, but was not 

 successful. 



