38 PHEASANTS 



that a hard-hit pheasant to which his old 

 pointer had stood fell into a deep pool 

 and dived like a moor-hen, the pointer 

 immediately diving in too and retrieving 

 the bird under water. Again in 1864, an 

 officer shooting near Shanghai dropped 

 a wounded pheasant on the edge of a 

 creek eight yards wide : the pheasant 

 deliberately dived, swam across under 

 water, scrambled out on the far side and 

 departed, leaving his pursuer too much 

 astonished to follow him. 



The pheasant takes wing easily con- 

 sidering his bulk and the relatively small 

 size of his wings ; in this he is much 

 aided by having strong muscular legs 

 to take off from. The upwards flight 

 is carried out by short, active strokes of 

 the wings, helped by the large pectoral 

 muscles. The height attained rarely ex- 

 ceeds 100 feet above the starting-point, 

 and the pace is at best rather under forty 

 miles an hour. 



From the top of his flight, the pheasant 

 glides down with set wings and expanded 



