274 
OBSEllTATIONS ON BIRDS. 
are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail 
of a hen pheasant,, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing 
feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously streaked, somewhat 
like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it with my verdict, 
that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock 
pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the 
keeper who brought it, he told me that some pea-hens had been known 
last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts where this mule was 
found. 
Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed to 
take an exact copy of this curious bird. 
N.B. It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges have 
imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or blackcock ; ^ it is 
however to be observed, that Mr. W. remarks, that its legs and feet 
Avere naked, whereas those of the grouse are feathered to the toes. 
White. 
Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have done laying, 
sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird," and has given a 
figure of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian 
Museum ; and M. Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she 
has done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." May 
not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of this kind % 
that is, an old hen pheasant which had just begun to assume the 
plumage of the cock. — Markwick. ' 
* There have been several opinions stated as to whether this bird was a hybrid, 
or only a young blackcock before it had attained its full plumage. The point at 
issue is of very little importance, as we know now certainljT- that a mule occa- 
sionally takes jjlace between the black grouse and pheasant, and if the red 
patch represented in the figure to surround the eye has been correctly drawn, 
the probability is that it was a hybrid. 
The specimen was stuffed and formed part of the museum of the Earl of 
Egremont at Petworth. This collection was afterwards entirely destroyed by 
moths or carelessness, and with it the bird in question, so that there is now no 
means of solving the question by a fresh examination. But Mr. Herbert writes, 
** I saw this curious bird stuffed in the year 1804, and I have not the slightest 
hesitation in pronouncing that it was a mule between the blackcock and the 
common pheasant. I was informed at the time by Lord Egremont that it was 
Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention, compared 
it with the description in the 'Naturalists' Calendar,' and wrote at the moment 
marginal memoranda on my copy of that book. In Mr. White's description of 
that bird, where he says, ' that the back, wing feathers, and tail were somewhat 
like the upper parts of a hen partridge,' I scratched out at the time, the words 
* somewhat like,' and wrote in the margin ' much browner than,' and with that 
alteration I believe Mr. White's description to be quite correct : but I noted 
down that the plate was exceedingly ill coloured, which indeed may be perceived 
by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I now, entertain 
the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black game and the 
pheasant." 
As I understood that it has been surmised that the hybrid described by 
White might have been a young blackcock in moult, I wish to state in the most 
positive manner, that I am certain it was not. I had at the period when I 
examined it, been in the annual habit of shooting young black game, and was 
perfectly well acquainted with all their variations of plumage ; and had also been 
accustomed to see them reared in confinement. It is a point on which I could 
not be deceived. The bird had neither the legs and feet, nor the plumage of a 
blackcock in any stage of its growth. " 
The above, copied from Mr. Bennet's notes, is the most direct proof we can now 
