A Valuable Cross. 191 



Testimony to the value of the Mongohan cross was adduced 

 by a correspondent who, writing in the Field of January 16, 

 1909, saj^s, " On the estate where I have recently been shooting 

 for some years the Chinese pheasant (P. torquatus) has been 

 reared, and splendid shots they have given. But for the last 

 three years Mongolians have been introduced, and some of 

 them have been crossed with the Chinese ; the result is that the 

 birds this year have shown better sport than ever. They rise 

 freely to the beaters, and fly boldly, very fast and high ; in 

 fact, if flushed on rising ground they fly almost too high to 

 be reached. On one occasion when we were shooting, there 

 was a very high wind, and the birds were flushed on a hillside 

 over the guns placed in the valley ; no one who saw them fly- 

 could possibly say that they were lazy on the wing and never 

 gave a good sporting shot ; in fact, if anything, they were too 

 active on the wing and took such long flights that many of 

 them went straight away out of that day's beat." The keeper 

 on this estate gave it as his opinion that the chicks were very 

 hardy and easier to rear than those of the common pheasant. 



It is exceedingly satisfactory to know that the half-bred 

 P. mongolicus have proved successful in the coverts. At 

 Tring several hundreds were reared, and came to the gun in 

 1903. The male hybrids have very much the appearance of 

 the pure P. mongolicus. The wing coverts are not so clear in 

 the white : but in beauty, hardihood, and table qualities they 

 leave nothing to be desired. The hens, however, are difficult 

 to distinguish from those of the common species, but the 

 variation in the feather markings between the cross-bred 

 Mongolian and ordinary hen pheasants was the subject of two 

 interesting communications by Dr. H. Hammond Smith 

 which appeared in the Field of February 6 and March 6, 1909. 

 In the colchiciis and in the cross between the colchicus and the 

 torquatus, the feathers of the rough coverts of the hens are 

 marked with alternate bars of pale buff and black, arranged in a 

 lanciform shape, with the narrow part pointing down the 

 feather. In the hen of the Mongolian pheasant, on the other 



