PHEASANTS AND BUSTARDS. 
95 
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 circum- 
stances very similar. The horse, however, took 
fright, became unmanageable at so unexpected 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 over- 
came its natural fear of water, as to be in the con- 
stant habit of making a short cut from the church- 
yard (into which she, with the rest of the poultry, 
occasionally 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; but the following 
account from a highly-respectable authority*, seems 
to set the question at rest, and deserves the atten- 
tion of those who are interested in the improvement 
of their race of poultry. 
* Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. Y. 
