92 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



in the preserves ; the bird itself is hateful, and is the 

 one species I devoutly wish to see exterminated in 

 the land. 



But when I find this same bird where he exists com- 

 paratively in a state of nature, and takes his chance 

 with the other wild creatures, the sight of him affords 

 me keen pleasure : especially in October and No- 

 vember when the change in the colour of the leaf all 

 at once makes this familiar world seem like an enchanted 

 region. We look each year for the change and know it 

 is near, yet when it comes it will be as though we now 

 first witnessed that marvellous transformation — the 

 glory in the high beechen woods on downs and hill- 

 sides, of innumerable oaks on the wide level weald, and 

 elms and maples and birches and ancient gnarled 

 thorns, with tangle of vari-coloured brambles and ivy 

 with leaves like dark malachite, and light green and 

 silvery grey of old-man's-beard. In that aspect of 

 nature the pheasant no longer seems an importation 

 from some brighter land, a stranger to our woods, 

 startlingly unlike our wild native ground-birds in their 

 sober protective colouring, and out of harmony with 

 the surroundings. The most brilliant plumage seen 

 in the tropics would not appear excessive then, when 

 the thin dry leaves on the trees, rendered translucent 

 by the sunbeams, shine like coloured glass, and when 

 the bird is seen in some glade or opening on a wood- 

 land floor strewn with yellow gold and burnished 

 red, copper and brightest russet leaves. He is one 

 with it all, a part of that splendour, and a beautifully 



