OBSERVxiTIONS ON BIRDS. 
273 
the water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly 
secure, as will appear from the following circumstance which happened 
in this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. 
A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in 
which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the 
fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the 
gander, which being most powerful in its own element, buffeted the 
fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned. — Markwick. 
nm PARTRIDGE. 
A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with 
her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. 
While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her 
brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old 
fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct. — White. 
It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and 
run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or 
man, to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I 
have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance 
of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a 
young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges : the 
old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's 
nose till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took 
wing, and flew still farther oflP, but not out of the field : on this the 
dog returned to me, near which place the young ones lay concealed in 
the grass, which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back 
again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and 
tumbling about, drew ofi^ his attention from her young, and thus 
preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has 
been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at 
the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to' 
preserve their brood. — Markwick. 
A HYBRID PHEASANT. 
Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious bird 
for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in 
a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, air, and habit of the bird, 
and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance 
of a cock pheasant; but then the head and neck, and breast, and 
belly were of a glossy black : and though it weighed three pounds three 
ounces and a half,* the weight of a full-grown cock pheasant, yet there 
were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock 
pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of 
feathers and therefore it could be nothing of the grouse kind. In the 
tail were no bending feathers such as cock pheasants usually have, and 
* Hen pheasants usually weigh, only two pounds ten ounces. 
T 
