PHASIANUS COLCHICUS. 541 



shepherd on their way to see the King, and asks their business 

 at Court, the shepherd answers — 



Shep. — " My business, sir, is to see the King. 

 Aut. — What advocate hast thou to him? 

 Shep. — I know not, an't like you. 

 Clown {whispers)— Advocate's the Court word for a pheasant, say you have 

 none. 

 Shep. — None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. 

 Aut. — How blest are we that are not simple men I 



Yet nature might have made me as these are." 



The pheasant is too well known to need a long description. 

 For breeding in preserves and numbers shot at slaughter-time I 

 refer my readers to keepers and dealers in game. It takes its 

 name from the banks of the Phasis, one of the rivers of Colchis, 

 where it came from, hence Phasianus Colchicus. It is said to 

 be the descendant of another species (Phasianus Torquatus), 

 introduced into Britain from China ; but this paler kind is 

 merely a variety. They breed together ; the ring-necked is the 

 prevailing type. I have five cocks and five hens all different, 

 some with white heads and necks, some with white wings and 

 tails, some cream-coloured and grey, others pied and mottled all 

 over, like parti-coloured domestic fowls. Thick underwood or 

 long grass is its natural resort, where it lies during the day ; its 

 time of feeding, dawn and sunset, and as it always runs to its 

 feeding ground in the same narrow paths it is easily snared. 

 Its habit of roosting on trees is still more fatal — seen by its 

 long tail hanging down — and as it is not easily frightened off 

 its perch is a sure mark for the poacher in the moonlight ; from 

 this, many find their way to the market in spite of the game 

 laws. The roosting place of the male is known, like the vanity 

 of a fool, by ostentatiously chuckling when first he perches. 

 The hen also chatters in response. But during summer and 

 moulting they rarely perch ; they rest at night amongst long 

 grass or thick cover until the end of September. During 

 winter the males associate apart from the females, nor till the 

 end of March do they care for them coming near ; but after 

 that, like the deeper tint on the breast of the linnet, the scarlet 

 of his cheeks and space around his eyes tells that Nature makes 

 the cock don his courting garb. He struts, presses his wings to: 

 the ground, erects his tail, claps his wings, crows, and gathers 

 his harem together, takes possession of a certain beat, and drives^ 

 away every male — as proud as King David or Solomon — in the 

 midst of his many wives. The hen makes her nest amongst 

 ^ong grass or underwood, and lays from ten to fourteen cream- 



