PHEASANTS AND BUSTARDS. 
285 
it still continued shy in the presence of strangers. From 
the time of its capture in J une, till August, when it was sold 
to a nobleman for thirty-one guineas, it was never seen to 
drink ; indeed, after the first three weeks, water was never 
given to it. A second instance of one of these birds attacking 
a human being occurred about a fortnight afterwards, near 
the same spot, and under circumstances very similar. The 
horse, however, took fright, became unmanageable at so un- 
i expected an attack, and ran away with his rider. 
In the above cases, we find only an increase of that spirit 
with which Nature has endowed them. But the clergyman 
who possessed the pugnacious Cock just mentioned, had a 
Hen, which so far overcame its natural fear of water, as to he 
in the constant habit of making a short cut from the church- 
yard (into which she, with the rest of the poultry, occasion- 
ally wandered) to the barn -yard, by regularly swimming 
across a pool, which was situated between it and the church- 
yard. The distance was about thirty yards, and the part of 
the pool where she crossed was so near the end of it, that 
the other fowls which came round arrived before her. This 
Hen had another uncommon propensity, that of catching mice, 
a practice she pursued with the greatest eagerness, and when 
caught she was seen to run off with them ; whether she ate 
them or not was never known with certainty; at all events, 
she did not do so invariably, as they were sometimes found 
dead up and down the yard. 
It has been often doubted whether the Pheasant will breed 
with the common Hen; hut the following account from a 
highly respectable authority , 1 * seems to set the question at 
rest, and deserves the attention of those who are interested in 
the improvement of their race of poultry. 
In the Autumn of 1826, a wandering Pheasant made its 
appearance in a small valley of the Grampians, the first of 
the species ever noticed so far north in that part of the 
country. For some time it was only occasionally observed, 
and its presence actually doubted. Winter wants, however, 
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. V. 
