32 GAME BIEDS OF CALIFOENIA 



from this parent stock were to be liberated on public lands. Owing 

 to the fact that the female pheasants would not incubate their own 

 eggs and that hatching had therefore to be done by domestic hens, 

 few birds were reared and liberated. A year or two later a number 

 of imported pheasants were liberated in Santa Clara, Kern, and 

 Tehama counties. In 1897, an agent was again sent to Oregon and 

 323 Ring-necked Pheasants were obtained. These were distributed 

 in five-pair lots to many different parts of the state. In 1898, 93 

 "Mongolian" (= Chinese Ring-necked) and 150 "English Ring- 

 necked" pheasants were purchased and liberated. Later, favorable 

 reports stating that young birds had been seen came from Humboldt, 

 Santa Clara, and Fresno counties. Most of the "Mongolian" Pheas- 

 ants were brought over from Hongkong, China, and were purchased 

 for seventy-five cents each.^ 



During the next few years the commission was unable to secure 

 pheasants from the Orient because of the fact that a demand had arisen 

 for pheasants for table use on steamers stopping at Asiatic ports, and 

 the resulting increase in cost was prohibitive. By 1906, interest had 

 centered in the Hungarian Partridge, and attention was for the time 

 withdrawn from pheasants.. 



When the State Game Farm was established, in 1908, a breeding 

 stock of Ring-necked Pheasants was secured, and during the next few 

 years hundreds of pheasants were reared and planted throughout the 

 state. The largest distribution took place in 1912, when 1398 Ring- 

 necked Pheasants were planted in twenty different counties in the 

 state." The total number of pheasants liberated by the Fish and Game 

 Commission up to 1916 was approximately five thousand. One or more 

 plants have been made in at least thirty-seven of the fifty-eight counties 

 of the state. 



More than twenty-five years have passed since Ring-necked Pheas- 

 ants were first introduced into California by private enterprise and 

 more than tM-enty years since they were introduced by the Fish and 

 Game Commission. In this time the repeated efforts which have been 

 made seem to us to have sufficiently tested the pheasant's ability to 

 become acclimated to Californian conditions. The species should have 

 become w^ell established throughout the state ; but it has not done so. 

 The birds are now reported as established in about twenty localities, 

 but in scores of places where large plants were made not a single wild 

 pheasant is to be found at the present time. In certain localities where 

 at first they thrived, they eventually disappeared. Some have, of 

 course, been killed by uninformed or malicious gunners; but in com- 



1 Calif. Fish Com., 1894, p. 29; ibid., 1896, p. 33; ibid., 1900a, p. 10; ibid.. 

 1900b, p. 41; ibid, 1902, p. 44. 



2 Calif. Fish and Game Comm., 1910, pp. 54-55; ibid., 1913, pp. 60-62. 



