RING-NECKED PHEASANT 313 



Millais (1909) described the courtship display as follows: 



At this season the usual walk is seen to be more reserved and dignified, and 

 the whole of the feathers are held out so as to give the bird a puffed appearance ; 

 the brilliant scarlet patch of skin round the eye is inflated and lowered beyond 

 the angle of the jaw and the purple ears erected and inclined outwards. The 

 bone-coloured bill is of a brighter hue and the eye, especially in the Mongolian 

 subspecies, very brilliant. Thus he proceeds until the moment of show. The 

 wing nearest the female is then lowered and extended, the scapulars dropped 

 a little, the tail is also spread and turned over towards her, so that she may 

 see its full beauty. The feathers of the rump are also opened as far as pos- 

 sible, the neck is lowered and curved and the head slightly turned to display 

 the extended eye ornaments. If the female walks coquettishly away, or picks 

 about with apparent indifference, he is not annoyed but walks ahead to stop 

 her and displays the other side of his person. 



Courtship displays of captive pheasants are easily studied, but 

 under favorable circumstances these may be seen in the wild. I have 

 thus described my own observations (Townsend, 1920) : 



In courtship the ear-tufts of the cock are erected and the bare skin about 

 the eyes is prominent and very red. He struts before the hens turning in all 

 directions to display his gorgeous plumage, or walks, with an exaggerated bob- 

 bing motion. Every now and again he flaps his wings almost inaudibly, crows 

 and flaps again with a loud clapping sound. 



The rivalry among the cocks leads to more or less fighting, after 

 which the victor, according to Beebe (1918), crows and flies off. 



Nesting. — The ring-necked pheasant, as a rule, nests on the ground 

 in the open in fields of grass or grain and in bushy pastures, by 

 hedgerows or roadsides or haystacks, very rarely in the woods and 

 rarely at any great distance from water. The female is so protect- 

 ively colored that one may pass within a few feet of the incubating 

 bird and not see her, and she trusts so much to this protective colora- 

 tion that she rarely leaves the nest until almost stepped upon. 

 When she does leave she generally skulks quietly away and rarely 

 flushes. She is much more difficult to see than the clutch of ex- 

 posed eggs. A tuft, of grass or a group of luxuriant weeds helps in 

 the concealment of the nest, but in a field of grass or grain the 

 eggs lie bare to the sky when the crop is harvested if they are not 

 destroyed in the process. F. J. Rice writes of such a nesting sit- 

 uation found on August 10 : 



The oats had, of course, been harvested at this date and the nest lay in 

 the stubble, with no concealment beyond some weeds, which grew up 6 or 8 

 inches from the ground. There was but slight pretense of a nest, the nine 

 eggs lying on the earth among the weeds. In an hour [after his dog had 

 flushed her] the bird was incubating again. She seemed very fearless and 

 did not leave the nest again until a team and hayrack were driven within 10 

 feet of her. 



The dog, in hunting about the field, may have happened upon 

 the bird, for the sitting hen is protected not only by her coloration 



