268 
OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was em- 
ployed to take an exact copy of this curious bird. 
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 were naked, whereas those of the grouse are feathered 
to the toes.* 
LAND-RAIL. 
A MAN brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so rare in 
this district that we seldom see more than one or two in a season, 
and those only in autumn. This is deemed a bird of passage by 
all the writers : yet from its formation seems to be poorly quali- 
fied for migration ; for its wings are short, and placed so forward, 
and out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and 
embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly 
be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to de- 
pend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.f 
When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft and 
tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed like the 
ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small and lank, 
containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, and filled 
with small shell snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces 
through the attrition which is occasioned by the muscular force 
and motion of that intestine. We saw no gravels among the 
food: perhaps the shell snails might perform the functions of 
gravels or pebbles, and might grind one another. J Land-rails 
used to abound formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean fields 
and black grouse which I have seen was a female, in which the tarse was feathered half way 
down; but, as mule productions are not always exactly intermediate, there is nothing so very un- 
common about its appearance. In his sixth Letter to Mr. Pennant, Mr. White states, that black 
game were formerly common in Wolmer-forest, and mentions also that a solitary female had been 
seen some years previously. Such an individual might be expected to produce a hybrid with a 
male pheasant, where none of her own species remained in the neighbourhood. — Ed. 
* 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, — Maekwick. 
t I have known a bird of this species to have been shot in mid-winter, in good condition ; and 
there are two or three instances of their having been found torpid — not hyberuating ; but I have 
also known one to alight in spring upon the deck of an Jndiaman coming up the channel, and 
it is now well known that by far the greater number migrate. A very few remain and build in 
Surrey, but in summer they are much more plentiful in the northern and midland counties. — Ed. 
t Sir W. Jardine has taken a field mouse from the stomach of this species. — Ed. 
