(species) apparently the most alien to themselves as with their own
stock.
The Rev. W.D. Fox informs me that he possessed at the same time a pair
of Chinese geese (Anser cygnoides), and a common gander with three
geese. The two lots kept quite separate, until the Chinese gander
seduced one of the common geese to live with him. Moreover, of the
young birds hatched from the eggs of the common geese, only four were
pure, the other eighteen proving hybrids; so that the Chinese gander
seems to have had prepotent charms over the common gander. I will give
only one other case; Mr. Hewitt states that a wild duck, reared in
captivity, after breeding a couple of seasons with her own mallard, at
once shook him off on my placing a male Pintail on the water. It was
evidently a case of love at first sight, for she swam about the
new-comer caressingly, though he appeared evidently alarmed and averse
to her overtures of affection. From that hour she forgot her old
partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring the pintail seemed to
have become a convert to her blandishments, for they nested and
produced seven or eight young ones.
What the charm may have been in these several cases, beyond mere
novelty, we cannot even conjecture. Colour, however, sometimes comes
into play; for in order to raise hybrids from the siskin (Fringilla
spinus) and the canary, it is much the best plan, according to
Bechstein, to place birds of the same tint together. Mr. Jenner Weir
turned a female canary into his aviary, where there were male linnets,
goldfinches, siskins, greenfinches, chaffinches, and other birds, in
order to see which she would choose; but there never was any doubt, and
the greenfinch carried the day. They paired and produced hybrid
offspring.
The fact of the female preferring to pair with one male rather than
with another of the same species is not so likely to excite attention,
as when this occurs, as we have just seen, between distinct species.
The former cases can best be observed with domesticated or confined
birds; but these are often pampered by high feeding, and sometimes have
their instincts vitiated to an extreme degree. Of this latter fact I
could give sufficient proofs with pigeons, and especially with fowls,
but they cannot be here related. Vitiated instincts may also account
for some of the hybrid unions above mentioned; but in many of these
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