12 THE CHINA OR DENNY PHEASANT IN OREGON 
stocking of game in many another state. In 1880 the late Judge O. N. Denny, then 
Consul-General to Shanghai, after whom the legislature of Oregon has since called the 
bird the “Denny pheasant,” formulated the idea of introducing these beautiful creatures 
into his home in the United States. In his own words, ‘The Chinese farmers never shoot 
the birds nor do anything which tends to frighten them from their fields, holding them 
friends rather than enemies, doing far more good to their crops than harm by the 
destruction of insects. They take them with nets and market them alive, but the fact that 
they were often poor and thin induced me to purchase them by the dozen and feed them 
until they were fat and fit for my table. On one occasion I had in my inclosure a large 
number of extraordinarily handsome birds, and while admiring them I thought, What 
would [ not give to be able to turn the entire lot adrift in Oregon? Then and there the 
resolve was made.” 
The first shipment, consisting of seventy birds, reached Olympia on Puget Sound 
safely and were then put into small ordinary coops to be sent to Portland. The coops 
were left uncovered, and on that short trip they beat themselves so violently against the 
bars in terror of the strange sights and sounds about them, that but seven or eight reached 
their destination alive; and they were so bruised that they soon died. With some the 
story would have ended here, yet apparent failure, accompanied as it was by no light 
