THE PHEASANT 219 
great anxiety, as if wishing to draw attention from her chicks to 
herself. Their food consists of the fresh green twigs of heath and 
other mountain plants, seeds, and berries. While feeding they 
run about, and are shy in taking flight even when they have acquired 
the use of their wings, but crouch on the approach of danger, and 
remain motionless and silent. When at length they do rise, they 
fly off in a loose party, and mostly in a direct line, for a distant 
part of the mountain, the movement of their wings resembling that 
of the Grouse, but being lighter in character. Early in the season, 
a long time before Grouse, the coveys of Ptarmigans unite and 
form large packs, and it is while thus congregated that they per- 
form their partial migrations from the high grounds to what they 
consider a milder climate, the Norwegian valleys. There, while 
the ground is covered thickly with snow, they, to a certain extent, 
modify their habits, and perch on trees, sometimes in such numbers 
that the branches seem to be altogether clothed in white. It does 
not appear that any of these flocks make long journeys or cross 
the sea. In Scotland they are no more numerous in winter than in 
summer, nor have they been observed to take refuge in the woods. 
In the comparatively mild temperature of Scotland there occurs no 
lengthened period during which they cannot find their simple food 
somewhere in the open country; they consequently do not leave 
the moors, but only descend lower. 
The Ptarmigan is neither so abundant nor so generally diffused 
in Scotland as the Grouse. It is residenton high mountains. It is 
said to have existed at one time in the north of England and in 
Wales ; if so, it has totally disappeared, nor is it known in Ireland. 
FAMILY PHASIANIDZ 
THE PHEASANT 
PHASIANUS COLCHICUS 
Head and neck glossy, with metallic reflections of green, blue, and purple; 
sides of the head bare, scarlet, minutely speckled with black; general 
plumage spotted and banded with orange-red, purple, brown, yellow, 
green, and black, either positive or reflected ; tail very long, of eighteen 
feathers, the middle ones longest. Female—light brown, marked with 
dusky: sides of the head feathered ; tail much shorter. Length three 
feet. ggs olive-brown. 
Tuts climate suits the Pheasant pretty well, and at most seasons of 
the year it finds abundance of food ; but in hard winters the supply 
diminishes, or fails altogether ; and were not food specially scat- 
tered about for it in its haunts, it would either die off from being 
