RING-NECKED PHEASANT 315 



show great activity, and the mother bird leads them in search of food. 

 If enemies, including the chief one, man, should disturb the family 

 at this time, the mother resorts to the " broken-wing " tactics and 

 flops over the ground, endeavoring to lead the enemy away. At 

 other times the mother springs into the air with a loud whirring of 

 wings, while the young scatter and hide. Leffingwell (1928) says 

 that " normally all the care of the young is undertaken by the female 

 until the young birds are from six to seven weeks old. After this 

 time the cock bird occasionally wanders with the flock. I have seen 

 cock pheasants with a flock of six or seven week old birds on several 

 occasions and as no females were observed it is not unlikely that they 

 were setting or raising another brood." 



The mother bird leads her brood about exactly like the domestic 

 hen, helps them to find food, and broods them in cold or storm and 

 at night. 



The gain in weight of the young pheasants is at first rather slow. 

 The weight is doubled soon after the second week, but is increased 

 nearly sevenfold over the initial weight at 3 weeks, and at 5 weeks 

 the male chick weighs, according to Leffingwell's figure, about 15 

 times his birth weight and is fully feathered. Leffingwell writes 

 me: 



It is somewhat difficult to define the age at which young pheasants can fly. 

 The birds are able to clear a 1-foot obstruction when they are 4 or 5 days old, 

 but whether or not you can call this flying I do not know. Certainly when 

 they are a week old they can fly distances of 4 or 5 feet. 



I copy the following from my notes of September 1, 1913 : 



From my window this morning at 7 I saw a hen pheasant with a number of 

 half -grown young scale down the hill, alight on the edge of the " forest," and 

 disappear within. A few minutes later I heard a loud, insistent calling, kee 

 kee kee, which suggested somewhat a flicker. Then I saw the hen pheasant 

 standing erect, with head and neck stretched up, in the field, close to the trees. 

 Soon she stopped calling and disappeared in the grass, and three young pheas- 

 ants came sailing down the field to her. She had been drumming up the 

 laggards. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The chick in down is thus described 

 in Witherby's handbook (1920) : 



Fore-bead and sides of crown buff to yellow-buff with blackish line or spots 

 down sides, centre of crown dark red-brown to blackish-brown ; nape rufous ; 

 back of neck buff to yellow-buff with short blackish line in centre ; rest of up- 

 per-parts rufous-buff with three wide black lines and wings with black blotches ; 

 sides of head pale yellow-buff to pale buff with a brownish streak from base 

 of upper mandible and a black spot on ear-coverts ; under-parts buff white to 

 pale buffish-yellow, sometimes with a tawny tinge at base of throat. 



The same writer describes the juvenal plumage, as follows : 



Crown and back of neck dark brown, feathers with subterminal pale buff 

 marks giving a spotted appearance; mantle and scapulars brown-black, 



