45 



[Vol. xxxi. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild, Ph.D., F.R.S., exhibited 

 a male and four female examples of the English Pheasant 

 (mongrel race) in melanistic plumage, to further illustrate 

 the points raised by Mr. Witherby at the last Meeting. He 

 pointed out that the dark females were the exact counterpart 

 of " Sabine's Snipe " and "Von Huegel's Snipe" in Galli- 

 nago gallinago and ' ( Gallinago aucklandica " respectively, 

 and of the so-named " Synoicus lodoisia:" in the Common 

 Quail, Coturnix coturnix. They had the same broad black 

 bars and darkened ground-colour on the breast, and the grey 

 of the remaining parts was much reduced, while the red 

 and black colours were greatly increased and intensified. 

 The dark plumage in the male Pheasant, produced by the 

 intensifying of the pigment, was very unusual. Instead of 

 the metallic green and blue of the head and neck ending 

 abruptly, and the breast and flank-feathers being coppery- 

 orange edged with black, the metallic colouring merged 

 completely into the purple of the lower neck and upper 

 breast. The lower breast, flanks, and abdomen were sooty- 

 black, each feather broadly edged with metallic-purple and 

 with a buff shaft-stripe. The wings and greater coverts 

 were brownish-olive, the lesser coverts margined with metallic 

 steel-purple, the lower back and rump with olive instead of 

 rufous edges to the feathers, and each with a broad bluish- 

 purple instead of a green cross-bar. The upper tail -coverts 

 olive instead of rufous, and washed with ochre-yellow on 

 the sides ; the tail-feathers with metallic-purple instead of 

 rufous edges. 



The male and three of the female Pheasants had been 

 purchased in the winter of 1889 in the Cambridge Market, 

 and were said to have come from Elveden Hall; the other 

 female was obtained some years later in Leadenhall Market. 



Mr. Rothschild exhibited pure-bred examples oiPhasianus 

 colchicus colchicus and P. c. versicolor, as well as crosses 

 between them and between P. c. torquatus, to prove that the 

 peculiar, almost Crow-like purple-black plumage was melan- 

 istic and not the result of cross-breeding. 



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