]24 PHASIANUS COLCHICUS. 



wings. The crowing of the pheasant resembles that of a young 

 domestic cock in its earliest attempts, and is often heard in the 

 woods in April and May. The female, after depositing her 

 eggs among the long grass, or under the shade of a bush, hav- 

 ing merely scraped a slight hollow which she has scantily 

 lined with dry leaves, is deserted by the male, and performs 

 the task of bringing forth and leading about the young with- 

 out his assistance. The eggs, from six to ten in number, are 

 of a regular oval form, smooth, but minutely dotted, averaging 

 in length an inch and ten- twelfths, in breadth an inch and 

 five-twelfths, and varying in colour from pale greenish-brown 

 to greyish- white, tinged with green, being generally very simi- 

 lar to those of the Common Partridge. Comparatively few 

 of the eggs, however, are hatched by the parent birds, they 

 being for the most part put under domestic hens, and the 

 young, when grown up, are let loose. 



Young. — The young when fledged resemble the female, 

 being of a dull greyish-yellow, variegated with broAvn and 

 black. The male may be distinguished from the female by 

 having the bare space under the eye less feathered, and the 

 colouring somewhat richer. Young Pheasants are very sub- 

 ject to a distemper called the gapes^ occasioned by a parasitic 

 worm, Fasciola trachece, which lodges in the wind-pipe, and 

 by causing it to inflame produces suffocation. Montagu has 

 given an ample account of this disease, and of the best mode 

 of treating it. Garlic, chives, or young onions, he states, may 

 be given very beneficially in the early stages ; but in the ad- 

 vanced state of the disorder, nothing is so eflectual as fumiga- 

 tion with tobacco, the diseased chickens being confined in a 

 box, having a door on one side, with its hinges so placed as to 

 open downwards. The smoke is blown in with a common 

 pipe, and the birds exposed to its influence until they are re- 

 duced to a state of stupefaction. 



One of the most remarkable facts relative to this bird that 

 have come under my observation, was the occurrence of a very 

 large quantity of fronds of Polypodium vulgare in the crop of 



