THE MONGOLIAN PHEASANT. —_ 603 
General Range.—China. Introduced in various localities of the United 
States. Well established in Washington, Oregon, and southern British Columbia. 
Range in Washington.—Well established on Puget Sound, especially at 
lower levels, and successfully introduced into various localities of eastern 
Washington. 
Authorities.—| “Mongolian Pheasant (introduced),’’ Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. 
T., 1884 (1885), p. 23.] Keck, Wilson Bulletin, No. 17, June 1904, p. 35. 
B. E. 
Specimens.—(U.of W.) Prov. BN. E. 
THE happiest event in the history of game protection in the Pacific 
Northwest, or indeed in the entire country, was the introduction, in 1880 and 
1881, of the China Pheasant by Judge O. N. Denny, of Oregon, then Consul- 
General to Shanghai. Happiest, we maintain, not alone because the bird draws 
the fire from our harassed and over-hunted native birds, but because it bids 
fair to furnish a staple article of food such as normally constituted people 
crave, and such as the Many, as distinguished from the favored Few, have a 
right to demand. 
The move was well considered on the part of Judge Denny, he having 
been long impressed with the high reputation which the bird bore in its native 
land, both as a table bird and as an economic factor in the subjugation of in- 
sect pests. He, therefore, at great expense, arranged an importation, first of 
seventy birds, which perished thru lack of proper care before liberation, and 
later of thirty birds, which were successfully liberated near Peterson’s Butte 
in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The Pheasants thus secured immediately 
established themselves in the Willamette country, and from this importation 
of 1881 most of our western stock has sprung. 
There are many factors which conspire to make the Mongolian Pheasant 
the favorite as it will be the dominant game bird of the West. In the first 
place, the male bird is a vision of loveliness, gorgeous in coloring beyond the 
ability of a mere word-painter to depict, occupying in this regard the same re- 
lation to other gallinaceous birds that our Wood Duck does to other water- 
fowl. A cock Pheasant brought to bag is both a dinner and a picture, a feast 
and a trophy. 
Then, and chiefly, the China Pheasant is a good rustler. Evolved in his 
native land under conditions of the most strenuous competition, the pheasant 
race has developed both adaptabilit; and endurance, staying qualities which 
give the bird an assured position in any situation remotely similar to that af- 
forded in China. Under protection, Pheasants avail themselves of all the 
privileges, ranging freely across farms and cultivated areas, finding sufficient 
cover in neglected fence-rows or wayside thickets, and becoming so bold as to 
disregard the passer-by, and even to venture into the farmyard to feed with 
the domestic fowls. Under persecution the bird as quickly develops wariness 
