10 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



lake or oily green, according to the way the skin is held. 

 Most of the wing-coverts sandy-brown ; middle of breast and 

 sides of belly dark purplish-green ; middle of belly and rest of 

 under-parts dark brown mixed with rufous. Tail-feathers olive 

 down the middle, with fiarrotv, wide-set, black bars, and widely 

 edged on each side with rufous, glossed with purplish-lake. 

 Total length, 37-5 inches; wing, lo-i ; tail, 21*2; tarsus, 2-8. 



Adult Female. — General colour sandy-brown, barred wath 

 black ; back and sides of the neck tinged with pinkish and 

 with metallic purple or green margins; feathers of the mantle 

 and sides of the breast and flanks chestnut, with black centres 

 and pinkish-grey margins ; an elongate patch of white black- 

 tipped feathers below the eyes ; quills more coarsely barred and 

 mottled with buff than in the male ; tail-feathers reddish-brown 

 down the middle, shading into sandy-olive on the sides and 

 with wide irregular triple bars of black, buff, and black. Total 

 length, 24-5 inches; wing, 8-6; tail, 11-5 ; tarsus, 2-4. 



Range. — The Common Pheasant has been introduced inmost 

 parts of Europe, with the exception of Spain and Portugal, and 

 the higher latitudes of Scandinavia and Russia. For this reason 

 it is difficult, if not impossible, to state accurately the Hmits 

 of its true home. It appears, however, to be found in a wild 

 state in Southern Turkey, Greece, and Asia Minor as far east 

 as Transcaucasia, and it extends northwards to the Volga. On 

 the Island of Corsica it is also met with in a wild state, and 

 may have been imported at some remote period ; but if it is 

 really indigenous there, its range must formerly have extended 

 much farther west than the countries mentioned above. 



There is no record, as far as we know, of its importation to 

 the British Islands, but it is mentioned in the bills-of-fare of 

 the Saxon kings. 



Hal3its. — The favourite home of the Pheasant is thick covert, 

 woods with plenty of undergrowth, in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of cultivated land, where in the morning and evening t! - 

 birds can come out to feed. Oak, hazel, and fir plantations 



