174 Birds I Have Kept. 



light, but a portion of it must be covered in, and otherwise 

 well protected from the weather. 



The breeding season extends from May to September. 



CHAPTER LXIL 



THE GOLDEN PHEASANT. 



THIS magnificent bird, rivalling even the Birds of Paradise 

 by the gorgeousness of its attire, is not by any means 

 as desirable a possession as might at first sight appear. 



Surely no one beholding for the first time his golden crest, 

 purple tippet, red back, yellow breast, and graceful tail, would 

 suspect that so splendid a creature could be the utter savage 

 he undoubtedly is, and, like most other savages, an arrant 

 coward to boot, but such is nevertheless the fact. 



The female is a very unpretending plain brown bird, without 

 a trace about her of the magnificent colours of her mate. 



Three or four hens should always be allowed to one cock, 

 and the better plan is to take away the eggs as they are 

 laid, and hatch them under bantams, or in an incubator: the 

 chicks are easily reared on yolk of egg, ants' eggs, and the 

 pupae, not the larvae, of the flesh-fly, adding, when they get 

 a little older, some of Sprats' excellent food. 



The hen Pheasant makes no nest, but merely scratches a 

 hole in the ground, pulling into it such grass stems as she 

 may find lying close by, and lays her eight or ten chocolate 

 coloured eggs on each succeeding day until the batch is com- 

 plete. The period of incubation is twenty-one days, and the 

 young are able to run strongly almost immediately upon leaving 

 the shell. 



Young Pheasants have a nasty habit of pecking each other, 

 and pulling out, especially, the large feathers of the wings 



