Birds. 875 



of pied and white pheasants, where formerly, in the same covers, there 

 was but one white or pied bird ; and there would have been very ma- 

 ny more, but a great number are annually shot by neighbours, who 

 are unwilling to spare them whenever they fly across a brook which 

 separates their lands from the covers in which the pheasants are bred. 

 Some of these three or four year old cock birds possess the most bril- 

 liant plumage imaginable, and of almost every variety ; and when the 

 fox-hounds draw the covers, so many of these curiously marked phea- 

 sants, seen flying about in their natural state, affords a novel and 

 amusing sight to strangers. 



This season I have shot six or seven brace of the variegated phea- 

 sants, principally hens, and of the least beautiful kind, of which I for- 

 warded as a specimen to the Editor of ' The Zoologist,' a cock and 

 hen bird, nearly white ; but the most splendid birds I have hitherto 

 refrained from killing, on account of their singular beauty, though a 

 very handsome brace of pied cock birds are in the possession of my 

 friend, It. Eden, Esq., of the Privy-seal office, shot here by himself 

 last November, and whose collection of foreign birds is well known 

 to his friends. Other friends are also in possession of various speci- 

 mens killed here at different times. 



Out of so many, that some of these variegated birds should stray 

 away, was to be expected, and consequently they have, from time to 

 time, gradually wandered away to distant covers. At first I heard of 

 their being seen occasionally only at a short distance off, and in after 

 years I was told of their being met with and killed at greater distan- 

 ces from this place, but chiefly within a circle of two or three miles, 

 which seems to be the limit they have hitherto spread to, and it is 

 now not unfrequent for one or more to be seen in the various preserves 

 within that space, the owners of which all agree that these birds must 

 have come from hence, and designate them as " Hatton pheasants." 

 And though now and then, no doubt, some of a similar kind are found 

 originally so bred in more distant covers and in other counties ; yet 

 when this does occur, they are generally immediately shot, which ac- 

 counts for their not increasing : but in the covers on this property, 

 where they are protected, they are evidently fast increasing, and if not 

 destroyed by neighbours, would do so much more rapidly. A friend 

 also informed me that he had, some years ago, made a present of a 

 pair of pied pheasants to his brother, a Staffordshire Baronet, to turn 

 out amongst the vast quantity of the common pheasant which his co- 

 vers are stocked with ; and now, he states, a considerable number of 

 the variegated kind are annually seen, where before there were none. 



