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A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct.'

settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease; an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the summer duck (Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an oak tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being the most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned.-MARKWICK.

1 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man, to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges; the old bird cried, flut

HYBRID PHEASANT.

LORD STAWELL sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, and air, and habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a cock pheasant: but then the head and neck, and breast and belly, were of a glossy black: and though it weighed three pounds three ounces and a half,' the weight of a large full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers; and therefore it could be nothing of the grouse kind. In the tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing-feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet, curiously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me that some pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts where this mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird."

tered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing and flew still farther off, but not out of the field: on this the dog returned to me, near which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about drew off his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood.-MARKWICK.

1 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.-G. W. 2 The picture was subsequently presented to Gilbert White by Lord Stawell. See Jesse's "Gleanings," second series, p. 159.-ED.

[It ought to be mentioned that some good judges have imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or black cock; 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.-J. A.]1

1 Dr. 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.-MARKWICK.

Concerning the hybrid pheasant, John Hunter, in the "Philosophical Transactions," Art. xxx. 1760, says, "The subject of the account is a hen pheasant with the feathers of the cock. The author concludes, that it is most probable that all those hen pheasants, which are found wild, and have the feathers of the cock, were formerly perfect hens, but that now they are changed with age, and perhaps by certain constitutional circumstances." We may add that the assumption of male plumage by the hen is not confined to the pheasant.

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The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, referring to the identical specimen described by Gilbert White, says: "I saw this curious bird stuffed, in the collection of the Earl of Egremont at Petworth, in the year 1804, and I have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing that it was a mule between the black cock and the common pheasant. I was informed at the time by Lord Egremont that it was Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention, compared it with the description in the Naturalist's Calendar,' and wrote at the moment marginal memoranda on my copy of that book. In Mr. White's description of the bird, where he says that the back, wing-feathers, and tail, were somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge, I scratched out, at the time, the words 'somewhat like,' and wrote in the margin much browner than,' and with that alteration I believe Mr. White's description to be quite correct; but I noted down that the plate was exceedingly ill coloured, which indeed may be perceived by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I now, entertain the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black game and the pheasant. I understand that some doubt exists at present whether it was Mr. White's identical specimen, though I am quite positive from my notes that it was at the time (now above thirty years ago) stated to me to have been so; and I am persuaded that it was his: but if there was any misunderstanding on that point, and it could have been a second specimen killed in the same line of country, there is not the slightest doubt that it was of like origin and appearance, for I had no excep

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 qualified 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 depend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.

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

tions to take of White's description, except that the black was much browner than that of a partridge instead of somewhat like, which is not in fact contradictory. The whole of Lord Egremont's collection was afterwards destroyed by maggots, and the specimen has long ceased to exist. As I understand it has been surmised that the hybrid bird described by White might have been a young black cock in moult, I wish to state, in the most positive manner, that I am certain it was not. I had, at the period when I examined it, been in the annual habit of shooting young black game, and was perfectly well acquainted with all their variations of plumage; and had also been accustomed to see them reared in confinement. It is a point on which I could not be deceived. The bird had neither the legs and feet, nor the plumage, of a black cock in any stage of its growth."--ED.

The scarcity of the land-rail in the neighbourhood of Selborne in Gilbert White's day is not a little remarkable. Considering that the bird migrates to this country in spring from the south of Europe, one would suppose that in Hants and Sussex of all counties it would be found in tolerable plenty. It is by no means scarce there at the present day. In September, 1863, the writer, while shooting in company with a friend within ten miles of Selborne, killed three brace of land-rails in one day. This was on the 4th September, and the birds were all shot out of clover. If the species were not really overlooked by Gilbert White, owing to its skulking habits, the increase in its numbers at the present day in the district of which he wrote must be attributed to the alteration which has taken place in the mode of cultivating the surrounding farms, and the greater attraction which is now afforded to the bird in the way of food and shelter.-ED.

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 gravel among the food: perhaps the shell snails. might perform the functions of gravels or pebbles, and might grind one another.

Land-rails used to abound formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean fields of Christian Malford in North Wilts, and in the meadows near Paradise Gardens at Oxford, where I have often heard them cry crex, crex.

The bird mentioned above weighed seven ounces and a half, was fat and tender, and in flavour like the flesh of a woodcock. The liver was very large and delicate.'

FOOD OF THE RING-DOVE.

ONE of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was returning from feed and going to roost. When his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and deli

1 Land-rails are more plentiful with us [at Catsfield, near Battle.ED.] than in the neighbourhood of Selborne. I have found four brace in an afternoon, and a friend of mine lately shot nine in two adjoining fields; but I never saw them in any other season than the autumn.

That it is a bird of passage there can be little doubt, though Mr. White thinks it poorly qualified for migration, on account of the wings being short, and not placed in the exact centre of gravity: how that may be I cannot say, but I know that its heavy sluggish flight is not owing to its inability of flying faster, for I have seen it fly very swiftly, although in general its actions are sluggish. Its unwillingness to rise proceeds, I imagine, from its sluggish disposition, and its great timidity, for it will sometimes squat so close to the ground as to suffer itself to be taken up by the hand, rather than rise; and yet it will at times run very fast.

What Mr. White remarks respecting the small shell snails found in its gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it frequents corn fields, seed clover, and brakes or fern, more for the sake of snails, slugs, and other insects [a lapsus calami-ED.] which abound in such places, than for the grain or seeds; and that it is entirely an insectivorous bird.-MARKWICK.

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