COMMON PHEASANT, 



=95 



ample evidence of the wholesale destruction which a family of 

 Crows is capable of committing among Pheasants' eggs. 

 Within two miles of this spot, to his shame be it said, stood a 

 keeper's house, where a thousand young birds were being 

 reared. This worthy informed us that the great heat and 

 drought then prevalent was decimating his broods of young 

 Pheasants, who were dying in scores from a disease which 

 attacks the eyes, and from which few recover. He volunteered 

 the information that he had not been over to the belt of fir 

 wood " for this two months," as there was nothing there to take 

 him so far ! A little more attention to the destruction ol 

 Hooded Crows in April might have saved a hundred or 

 two of strong wild-bred birds for the sport in the fall of the 

 year. 



Female Pheasants that have become barren either from age 

 or through disease of the ovary, generally assume the plumage 

 of the cock to a greater or less extent, and we have known a 

 number of instances in which the male plumage had been so 

 perfectly donned, that it was only by the smaller size, blunt 

 spurs, and much shorter tail, that the true sex of the individual 

 could be ascertained. Last year I examined a hen pheasant 

 in perfectly normal plumage, but with a well-developed sharp 

 spur on each leg ; this bird, on dissection, was found to have 

 been shot in the left ovary, a No. 2 or 3 shot being there 

 imbedded, which had destroyed the organ, and given rise to an 

 ugly tumorous growth. The wound w^as evidently an old 

 standing one, but in this instance the plumage had remained 

 normal. 



The Common Pheasant not only crosses with other species of 

 its own kind, but hybrids are occasionally produced between 

 it and the Black Game, Domestic Fowl, and Guinea Fowl, 

 while instances are on record of hybrids between Pheasant 

 and Capercailzie. 



Albinos and piebald birds are by no means an uncommon 

 occurrence among our semi-domesticated birds, but no doubt 

 much rarer among really wild individuals. 



Nest. — A mere hollow in the ground, roughly lined with dead 

 leaves, and carefully hidden from view by dead fern, brambles, 

 or coarse grass or other herbage. 



