Geoffrey H. Clark—The Melanistic Mutant Pheasant 133


merely as a verbal simile to illustrate my point. Just as the first

process evolved a salt from the metal, so did something happen in

the life of the original Pheasant that caused all these “ pure bred

sports ”, to coin a phrase for them, to be thrown forth. Perhaps some

vast migratory movement, such as occurs from time to time in the

history of a bird, occurred, which caused numbers of Pheasants to

leave their original birthplace, wherever that might have been, and

far forth to those places in which we now find them. Changed conditions

in their new habitats involved radical changes, not only in the habits

but in the appearances of the birds. Possibly the infusion of a little

alien blood intensified these changes, and thus we get the various

species of Phasianus and allied genera that we know to-day. Now we

come to the process which the salt of the metal underwent in my simile.

And this, reverting once more to Pheasant parlance, is the promiscuous

interbreeding that goes on to-day among wild birds. Even as the

original metal was brought back by certain things being done to the

salt, so was the original Pheasant brought back by the process of

interbreeding.


All over the world sportsmen are importing Pheasants to augment

their native stock if such a thing exists. In England there is no native

stock, but for purposes of argument it may be assumed that Colchicus

comprises our native bird as it is the oldest established by far. It is

comparatively of recent times that Torquatus and Mongolicus have been

introduced. The bird resulting from interbreeding between these three

is said to be a better bird from the sportsman’s point of view, but from

the point of view of purity of blood it is sadly deteriorated. Up to a

certain point the most powerful strain would predominate. This is

proved by the way the Yersicolour and certain fancy strains were quickly

eliminated by the more vigorous nature of the three main birds.

Sooner or later, however, there would come a time when this triple

interbreeding would get the blood into such a tangle that there was no

saying which strain predominated. In such a case, we can imagine

the embryo, utterly at a loss as to which strain to take after, cutting

the Gordian knot by reverting right back to the original type. To

endow the embryo with sufficient intellectual qualities as to induce

perplexity, is, of course, rather infantile, but such a method of speaking



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