Their Eggs and Nests. i^g 



FAMILY II— PHASTANIDJS. 



VUEASA^T—^F/iasmnus Colchicus). 



I dare say " a good few " of our readers if they were 

 asked " Do you know the Pheasant ? " might answer, 

 " Yes, very well. We had some for dinner, such and 

 such a day." And I have no doubt the acquaintance 

 was satisfactory enough — at least to one of the 

 parties. The Pheasant does not pair, and on the pre- 

 served estates in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire I have 

 frequently seen in the spring large groups of Cock 

 Pheasants collected and consorting together without 

 the intermixture of a single hen. In a vast many 

 places now an artificial system of Pheasant-breeding 

 is adopted, three or four hens with one male being 

 turned into a large paled " apartment," well netted in, 

 the whole establishment comprising many such apart- 

 ments. Each hen lays double or treble the number of 

 eggs she would if suffered to run wild, and these are 

 collected daily and placed under heus ready to sit as 

 soon as a sufficient number is got together. In this 

 way twice or three times the number of young ones 

 is secured from one hen as compared with her own 

 greatest success in bringing oflf a brood in the woods. 

 In her wild state, the Pheasant makes scarcely any 

 nest, on the ground, and lays ten or twelve eggs, of a 

 uniform pale olive-brown shade. Not only are cases 

 in which two Pheasants lay in the same nest of by no 

 means unfrequent occurrence, but others even, in which 

 Pheasants' eggs have been iound in Partridges' nests. 

 Many instances are on record of tlie Pheasant inter- 

 breeding with other birds, such as the Guinea Fowl, 



