In my work on the birds of Asia will be found a full account of tbe two birds mentioned as liaving' been 
recently introduced into the British Islands, namely P. versicolor from Japan, and P. torquatusirem Southern 
China, together Avith several other species of this beautiful group of birds, respecting which it is only 
necessary to mention here that they nearly all inhabit the northern part of that great land-section of the 
globe called Asia, and that none of them are found in India. 
Of all the true Pheasants tlie P. colchicus in a pure state is the darkest in colour, and may be always 
recognized by the deep chestnut hue of its rump, a dark green stripe over each eye, and the uniform redness 
of its flank-feathers ; tbe Chinese P. torquatus is conspicuous for the light silvery green mark over each eye, 
the glaucous green of its rump, and the light buff’ colouring of its flank-feathers ; while the Japanese bird, with 
its splendid green breast and sides, differs materially from both. The birds usually shot in our woods exhibit 
an intermixture of all these tints and markings, no two being preeisely alike. 
As an evidence that the same colours in cross-bred birds cannot be perpetuated I append two notes wbich 
I find among my MSS. bearing upon this point. 
“ Burdett, the clever keeper of the Earl of Craven, Informs me that a Pheasant which had a narrow ring 
round its neck the first year bad a very broad one during the second, and that in the third it had totally 
disappeared. ‘ I am positive of this,’ he says, ‘ as it Avas never taken out of the pen in which it was kept.’ ” 
“Mr. J. H, Gurney bred some extremely beautiful first-cross birds between a Green Pheasant, obtained at 
the Earl of Derby’s sale, and the species common in his woods at North Repps, in Norfolk ; and although 
they appeared to be extremely healthy, and some of them exceeding four pounds in weight, the race could 
not be perpetuated, 'Mr. Gurney assuring me that after an interval of a few years there was no strain of the 
green bird left.” 
On this head too, Mr. Stevenson, in his ‘Birds of Norfolk,’ has the folloAA'ing ])assage : — “ From personal 
observation and inquiry, howe\^er, during the last tAvo or three years, it appears that evidences of this cross, 
even in the coverts where these hybrids were most plentiful, are now scarcely perceptible, the strong charac- 
teristics of the Chinese bird apparently absorbing all the less-marked, though darker, tints of the Japanese. 
One of these birds, killed in 1853, weighed upwards of four and a half pounds ; and many examples AAdiich 
were stuffed for the beauty of their plumage will be found in the collections of our comity gentlemen.” 
The accompanying illustration represents an old and true Phasianus colchicus^ which has met with a fate 
to which hundreds of its brethren are annually subjected. 
