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number produced in the previous year. The number of young birds hatched, however, was greater, being eighty-two instead of sixty-two. But the number reared, owing to the bad weather, for which the summer of 1860 has been notorious beyond all precedent, has been slightly less—being only forty-five instead of fifty. The whole of the young birds have been disposed of among the members of the society except the four Impeyan pheasants, for which there are numerous applicants as soon as the sex of the birds shall be ascertainable.[1]
The next bird to which I will direct your attention is the Mandarin duck (aix galericulata), a native of the north of China. These beautiful birds are regarded by the Chinese as emblems of conjugal fidelity, and are usually carried about in their marriage processions. We have instances of attachment equal to, if not surpassing that of the dove, and the pair are usually seen close together, the male watching during the time the female sleeps, and the female watching while the male sleeps. They roost in elevated situations upon trees, high rocks, &c. The Chinese name for the mandarin teal is een yeong; and, with reference to the same conjugal quality, is applied figuratively to two kinds of fine black teas, which are generally mixed together. These are pekoe and a superior kind of souchong. When I first saw this bird alive in China, and gave some account of it in a work I published some years since, entitled, "Wanderings in New South Wales, Singapore, and China," I found it impossible to procure a pair of living birds, even at a very high price; and it is but little more than two years since that a request was made from this colony to the Governor of Hong
- ↑ As it is important in rearing birds to ascertain with some degree of accuracy the number of days of incubation of birds, I have given the following table, as published by the Zoological Society of London, and it appears that the time of incubation is as constant in each species of bird as the period of gestation in each species of mammal. Emeu (Dromacus Novæ Hollandiæ), fifty-six days; American ostrich (rhea Americana), thirty-five days. (The eggs of the emeu and rhea were hatched in the Society's incubator.) Impeyan pheasant (Lophophorus Impeyanus), twenty-eight days; cheer pheasant (catreus Wallichi), twenty-eight days; purple pheasant (gallophasis Horsefieldii), twenty-four days; white-crested kaleege (gallaphasis albocristatus), twenty-six days; black-backed kaleege (gallophasis melanotus), twenty-four days; Californian quail (callipepla Californica), twenty-one days; crowned pigeon (goura corrnata, twenty-eight days; crested pigeon (ocyphaps lophotes), fourteen days; black-necked swan (cygnus nigricollis), thirty-five days; black swan (cygnus atratus), thirty-five days; cercopsis goose (cercopsis Novæ Hollandiæ), thirty-five days; Sandwich Island goose (bernicla Sandvicensis), thirty-one days; ashy-headed goose (chlœcephaga poliocephala), thirty days; muddy wildrake (casarca rutila), thirty days; summer duck (aix sponsa), thirty days; Mandarin duck (aix galericulata), thirty days.
