PHEASANTS ROOSTING 7 



weather, but I believe that any one who set himself 

 seriously to test this theory would soon feel like 

 substituting "nothing" for "something" in the 

 statement of the proposition. It is much as with 

 Sir Robert Redgauntlet'sjackanape, I suspect — " ran 

 about the haill castle chattering, and yowling, and 

 pinching, and biting folk, specially before ill weather 

 or disturbances in the state." Every one knows the 

 loud trumpety note, as I call it, with which a 

 pheasant flies up on to its perch, for the night. It 

 is a tremendous clamour, and continues, sometimes, 

 for a long time after the bird is settled. But some- 

 times, after each loud flourish, there comes an answer 

 from another bird, which is quite in an undertone ; in 

 fact a difl^erent class of sound altogether, brief, and 

 without the harsh resonance of the other, so that 

 you would not take it to be the cry of a pheasant at 

 all were it not always in immediate response to the 

 loud one. It proceeds, too, from the same spot or 

 thereabouts. What, precisely, is the meaning of this 

 soft answering note ? What is the state of mind of 

 the bird uttering it, and by which of the sexes 

 is it uttered ? It is the cock that makes the 

 loud trumpeting, and were another cock to answer 

 this, one would expect him to do so in a similar 

 manner. It is in April that my attention has been 

 more particularly drawn to this after-sound, so that, 

 though early in the month, one may suppose the 

 male pheasant to have mated with at least a part of 

 his harem. One would hardly expect, however, to 

 find a polygamous bird on terms of aff^ectionate 

 connubiality with one or other of his wives, and yet 

 this little duet reminds me, strongly, of what one 



