40 ALLEN'S naturalist's LIBRARY. 



badly placed, for I could not see where the game could be. Up 

 got six Reeves's Pheasants, splendid birds. I felt certain ot 

 two, but I am sorry to say that I only succeeded in bagging 

 one, which went rolling down the hill in his last struggles I 

 bounded after him, afraid the dog would mouth his beautiful 

 plumage. The bird I had bagged was a cock, measuring five 

 feet four inches from the bill to end of the tail-feathers. From 

 the time I first came on their scent, the distance over which I 

 had worked must have been a mile." 



Reeves's Pheasant has at various times been turned down on 

 some of the large sporting properties in Great Britain, but it 

 cannot be considered a success, for the males drive away 

 the Common and Ring-necked Pheasants and do not inter- 

 breed freely with either species. 



A pair of these birds was received by Lord Tweedmouth 

 (then Sir Dudley Marjoribanks) from Pekin in 1870, and turned 

 out at Guisachen, Inverness-shire, where the breed was suc- 

 cessfully maintained for some years, fresh blood being sub- 

 sequently introduced by the acquisition of four additional 

 male birds. Lord Ravensworth makes the following remarks 

 on the habits of this species as observed by Lord Tweedmouth 

 in Inverness-shire :— " The Bar-tail is a true Pheasant, well able 

 to take care of himself in any climate, at any altitude, and is 

 more easily reared than the common species. He is very shy 

 and wild, difficult to approach, and takes to his legs long 

 before other Pheasants are conscious of any danger. His 

 flight is prodigiously rapid and straight, and he will travel 

 thirty miles on end, which, of course, is an objectionable 

 practice, except in such extensive forest grounds as the high- 

 lands of Scotland present. These Pheasants travel in troops 

 of fifteen or twenty, and present a grand and bewildering effect 

 when they rise in such a company. Any attempt to walk up to 

 them in brush covert is utterly hopeless, for they are exceed 

 ingly vigilant and go straight off like a dart, not more than 

 six feet from the ground, far out of reach. 



