The Golden Pheasant {ThaumaUa picta) 



By Gerard Alan Abbott 



Length: Twenty-eight inches. 



This beautiful bird is a native of China, as are most of the pheasants. It 

 is being bred with partial success in various places in the United States ; for years 

 it has graced city parks. The introduction of these birds into Washington and 

 Oregon has been successful. Great flocks of them are seen in the fields and 

 at the edges of the woods. They have been protected by law until they are so 

 numerous that a limited open season for hunting is now allowed. 



In various other states these fine birds have been introduced with varying 

 success. In Illinois, Missouri and various places in New York and the New 

 England States enterprising citizens have placed colonies of them. If they are 

 kept within an enclosure they become used to the locality, they seem to remain 

 and increase in number, if not, they often scatter and are killed by hunters who 

 mistake them for tropical birds. 



The flesh, as in the case of other pheasants, is fine eating, but the beauty is 

 such that one is reluctant to kill them for food. The bright artificial fish baits 

 are usually made from the tips of the bright colored feathers. 



In view of the strong and hardy nature of this bird, there should be little 

 difficulty in introducing it in any well-wooded farming region east of the 

 Mississippi, and south of the fortieth parallel. 



This pheasant, often called Chinese Pheasant, has rich, varied colors. The 

 crest is amber-colored, the rump is golden yellow, and the under parts are scarlet. 



The value of pheasants to the agriculturist is scarcely sufficiently appreciated ; 

 the birds destroy enormous numbers of injurious insects — upwards of twelve 

 hundred wireworms have been taken out of the crop of a pheasant; if this 

 number were consumed at a single meal, the total destroyed must be almost 

 incredible. There is no doubt that insects are preferred to grain, one pheasant 

 shot at the close of the shooting season had in its crop seven hundred twenty-six 

 wireworms, one acorn, one snail, nine berries and three grains of wheat. Mr. F. 

 Bond states that he took out of the crop of a pheasant four hundred and forty 

 grubs of the crane fly or daddy longlegs ; these larvae are exceedingly destructive 

 to the roots of the grass on lawns and pastures. As another instance of their 

 insectivorous character may be mentioned the complaint of Waterton that they 

 had extirpated the grasshoppers from Walton Park. They also occasionally eat 

 molluscous animals, Mr. John Bishop, of Llandovery, records that he killed a 

 pheasant on the coast of Islay whose crop was filled with the colored snails 

 abounding on the bents or grass stems on the coast. 



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