FREAKS AND ODDITIES 51 



Gold Pheasant interbreeds with Amherst's Pheasant, 

 and the latter with Swinhoe's Pheasant. Indeed, the 

 crosses which have taken place are rather bewildering 

 to a student, many of them being such as one would 

 have thought extremely improbable. 



Now, hybrids such as those just named do occur 

 from time to time in our coverts, and, when they are 

 shot, local sportsmen are sorely puzzled to know what 

 they should be called, and how they came to find 

 them. Mr. Tegetmeier exhibited two such hybrid 

 birds before the Zoological Society, representing 

 crosses between the Common Pheasant and the Gold 

 Pheasant, as also between the Silver and Common 

 Pheasants. ' It is needless,' he writes, ' to say that 

 these specimens were not designedly reproduced. How, 

 then, it may be asked, do they come in the coverts ? 

 The explanation appears to me very easy. Many 

 persons keep Gold or Silver Pheasants. A hen 

 escapes from the aviary, gains access into the coverts, 

 wanders perhaps many miles, presently locates her- 

 self, in default of a proper mate she associates with 

 the ordinary pheasant, and in this manner the hybrids 

 are produced. This is equally true of the Silver Phea- 

 sant. Of course, where these birds associate with 

 their own species hybrids would not be produced ; but 

 when a single bird is at liberty and has only another 



