GARDINER'S ISLAND 



43 



Pheasants were introduced on Gardiner's Island in 

 1892, when twenty-five females and one hundred males were 

 released. In 1893, two hundred females, one hundred males, 

 and one hundred and fifty birds of both sexes, bred by hand 

 on the island, were turned out. This constituted the entire 

 stock, which, responding to the exceptionally favorable con- 

 ditions, increased so rapidly that, at the end of eight years, 

 the Pheasant population was estimated at about 5000 birds. 

 During this period, some three or four hundred cock birds 

 — and cocks only — had been shot each fall. 



The birds now began to decrease. Some contracted a 

 disease resembling roup, with which the Crows on the island 

 were afflicted. The gamekeeper, Hiram Miller, thinks that 

 possibly the food supply on the island was not large enough 

 to maintain the maximum number of birds ; while George E. 

 Lodge, the English artist and ornithologist, who accompan- 

 ied me to the island in November, 1907, suggested that — as 



