56 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT 



The late Mr. Stevenson met with three such 

 hybrids in Norfolk, produced from the union of a 

 cock pheasant with a Cochin China fowl, a cross- 

 bred game Dorking, and a black bantam respec- 

 tively. These three birds were all procured in a wild 

 state. The second of the three, which proved to be a 

 male, ' had been repeatedly seen amongst the phea- 

 sants in the wood when the beaters were driving the 

 game towards the guns ; but as it ran with great swift- 

 ness, and never attempted to rise on the wing, it 

 always managed to escape, and was at last netted to 

 ascertain what it was. It measured thirty-two inches 

 from the tip of its beak to the extremity of the tail, 

 stood nineteen inches from the sole of the foot to the 

 crown of the head, and weighed seven and three- 

 quarter pounds. In its general appearance it had a 

 strange admixture of both pheasant and fowl, and was 

 not unlike a capercailzie cock about the head and neck. 

 The legs were clean and strong without spurs, and 

 decidedly gallinaceous in character ; the beak large 

 and powerful, and the tail long and rounded, with the 

 middle feathers somewhat the longest. The plumage 

 may be described as of a rich glossy green about the 

 head, neck all round, and the upper part of the 

 breast ; back and wings mottled with rich dark 

 chestnut glossed here and there with green, and each 

 feather tipped with a metallic shade of green ; the 



