HYBRID BIRDS. 



Hybridisation among birds has not hitherto received much 

 attention from British ornithologists. This may, perhaps, be 

 accounted for by the fact that cross-breeding is extremely 

 rare among wild birds. The females of any given species will 

 often ostensibly make up a love-match with males of another 

 species in confinement, but they seldom permit such males to 

 perform the functions of generation even under strictly artificial 

 conditions, and if at all, generally in response to the challenge 

 of males of their own kind. It is obvious that if birds are 

 reluctant to accept strange mates in captivity, they are still less 

 likely to choose unnatural loves in a state of freedom. Nor 

 should it be forgotten that the eggs of birds of different species 

 mated together usually prove sterile, while cross-bred young are 

 well known to be extremely delicate during their earlier stages 

 of development. There is one story of a Blackbird and Song 

 Thrush having paired and reared hybrid young, that specially 

 relates to Lakeland ; but, in the absence of evidence to show that 

 the female bird was properly identified, it does not seem desir- 

 able to cite it here. That the Goldfinch, Linnet, and Greenfinch 

 are, all of them, given to occasional cross matches in a wild 

 state, no one can dispute. Two male hybrids between the 

 Goldfinch and Linnet were caught near Carlisle in November 

 1885, not, indeed, together, but only about twelve miles apart. 

 One of them lived for several years in the possession of the late 

 James Fell, on whose death his widow sold it to a bird-fancier. 

 The other was purchased from the birdcatcher by John Addison 

 of Denton Holme, Carlisle. He gave £1 for it, and won some 

 prizes by its exhibition before he parted with it. They both 

 sang lustily. 



