THE PHEASANT THE PARTRIDGE. 299 



Argus Pheasant of Malacca, the Golden Pheasant of China, 

 and the Common Pheasant are the better known species. 

 The Common Pheasant is a native of the British Isles, where 

 it is cultivated and preserved. Under some circumstances 

 the cock pheasant displays considerable pugnacity and a 

 story is told of a young lady who when walking near Stirl- 

 ing was attacked by one which, " with spurs and beak began 

 a furious assault. Seeing no escape from the enraged bird, 

 she seized her adversary, and carried him home. He was, 

 however, soon released, and when the door was opened, he 

 went out without any sign of fear, and, with a deliberate 

 step, paced backwards and forwards in front of the house, 

 and manifested an inclination to join the fowls in the poultry 

 yard. The only way to account for this assault is, that the 

 lady wore a scarlet mantle, to which the pheasant may have 

 had such an antipathy as the turkey cock manifests to that 

 colour; an antipathy evinced by many other birds, and 

 various quadrupeds; and the cause of which is to us a 

 mystery." 



The The partridge is an interesting bird and shows 



Partridge, great intelligence in the care of its young. Mr. 

 Jesse mentions an instance quoted by Mr. Wood. "A gentle- 

 man who was overlooking his ploughman, saw a partridge run 

 from her nest, almost crushed by the horses' hoofs. Being 

 certain that the next furrow must bury the eggs and nest) 

 he watched for the return of the plough, when to his great 

 astonishment, the nest, previously containing twenty-one eggs, 

 was vacant. After a search, he found the bird sitting upon 

 the eggs under a hedge, nearly forty yards from the nest, 

 to which place she and her mate had removed the whole 

 number in less than twenty minutes." Mr. Markwick relates, 

 that " as he was once hunting with a young pointer, the dog 

 ran on a brood of very small partridges. The old bird 

 cried, fluttered, and ran trembling along just before the dog's 

 nose, till she had drawn him to a considerable distance; 



