256 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



SOME PHENOMENA OF SPECIES HYBRIDIZATION 

 AMONG PHEASANTS. 



By Geo. P. Mudge, A.R.C.Sc.Lond., F.Z.S., 



Lecturer on Biology at the London Hospital Medical College, University of 

 London, and at the London School of Medicine for Women, University 

 of London. 



A summary of certain results obtained by crossing Silver and 

 Swinboe Pheasants may be of interest as suggesting further 

 lines of research. 



An examination of the skins of hybrids obtained by crossing 

 the two species (Euplocamus nycthemerw x E. swinhoii) shows 

 that the analysis of the results is extremely difficult, and the 

 interpretation of the features of the hybrid plumage is not 

 without possible pitfalls. A pattern may be exhibited in the 

 hybrids which looks like a somewhat similar pattern in one 

 or other of the two sexes of the parent species. But whether 

 it represents the specific pattern, or is a hybrid character 

 simulating it, or whether it is a sort of dislocated mosaic with 

 some of the unit-characters of the pattern of one sex of one 

 parental species dominant, while other features of the pattern 

 arc dominant unit-characters from the other sex of the same 

 species, or from either of the two sexes of the other parental 

 species, is a problem which will require answering for each 

 special feature, by continued experiment. It follows from con- 

 siderations of this kind that unless the alternative feather 

 patterns and colours with which the investigator is concerned 

 are very strongly marked and divergent, and each represents 

 a single unit-character, or a combination of unit-characters 

 gametically coupled together, great caution is necessary in 

 making definite or positive statements even of the most seem- 

 ingly apparent results. So that any conclusions which I 

 may have reached, by an examination of these skins of 

 Pheasant hybrids, should be regarded merely as tentative and 

 provisional, and of value only as indicating the nature of 

 the further problems which these preliminary experiments in 



