THE PHEASAiSTTS. 



To adopt tlie words of Bitffon : " It is sufficient to name the pheasant to remind us 

 of the place of its origin.- The pheasant, that is, the bird of the Phasis, was, it is said, 

 exclusively confined to Colchis before the expedition of the Argonauts : those Greeks, 

 ascendiug the Phasis, to arrive at Colchi, beheld these fine birds spread along the banks 

 of the river, and by biinging them back to their own country, bestowed upon it a gift 

 more precious than the golden fleece. At the present day, the pheasants of Colchis, or 

 Mingulia, and some other of the neighbouring countries, are the finest and largest in the 

 known world." 



From these countries they have been extended in almost all the regions of the known 

 world. They are fomid in the greater part of Europe ; they are very abundant in Spain, 

 in Italy, in some parts of Germany, particularly in Bohemia, and in the south of France. 

 In the north they are less common. The common pheasant does not appear to inhabit 

 Africa ; but it is greatly multiplied in China, where it lives in the woods, without mixing 

 with the other species, which are also equally abundant in this vast empire. Pallas 

 describes pheasants as found in Siberia. They are very common among the Kirghis, who 

 ornament their bonnets with the plumes of this bird. 



THE COMMON PHEASANT.* 



" Close by the borders of the fringed lake, 

 .\nd on the oak's expanded bough, is seen, 

 "\\'hat time the leaves the passing zephp-s shake, 

 And gently mm-mui- through the sylvan scene. 

 The gaudy pheasant, rich with vaiying dyes, 

 That fade alternate, and alternate glow, 

 Receiving now his coloiu-s from the skies, 

 .\nd now reflecting back the watery bow. 

 He flaps his wings, erects his spotted crest ; 

 His flaming eyes dart forth a piercing ray ; 

 He swells the lovely plumage of liis breast. 

 And glai-es a wonder of the orient day.' 



• The generic character of the coromon pheasant has thus been given : — biU of mean 

 length, strong ; upper mandible convex, naked at the base, and with the tip bent do^\^l wards. 

 Nostrils basal, lateral, covered with a cartilaginous scale ; checks and region of the eyes 

 destitute of feathers, and covered with verrucosa red skin. Wings short, the first quills 

 equally narrowed towards their tips, the fourth and fifth the longest. Tail long, 

 regularly wedge-shaped, and composed of eighteen feathers. Feet, having three anterior 

 toes united by a membrane as far as the first joint, and the hind toe articulated upon the 

 tarsus, which in the male birds is furnished T\'ith a homy cone-shaped sharp spur. 



Pheasants are fond of the shelter of thickets and woods, where the grass is long ; yet, 

 like partridges, they often breed also in clover fields. They form their nests on the 

 groimd, where from twelve to fifteen eggs are laid, smaller than those of the domestic 

 hen. As in the mo^ving of clover near the woods frequented by pheasants the destruc- 

 tion of the eggs is sometimes very great, gamekeepers have had directions to hunt them 

 from these fields as soon as they begin to lay, untU their haunt is broken, and they retire 

 into the com. 



* Phasianus Colchicui>. 



