THE PHEASANT. 401 



the breeding season, when the male birds select their mates, for they 

 are polygamous. On these occasions they engage in such desperate 

 conflicts that the weaker bird is often killed. 



The hen Pheasant makes her nest on the ground, in the midst of 

 a thicket, or in a tuft of grass, and lays from twelve to twenty eggs, 

 which require twenty-four days to hatch. 



The mother does not manifest that care and solicitude for her 

 young which are <:o marked a characteristic of the majority of other 

 birds ; she does not even specially recognise her own progeny, for 

 she pays equal attention to all the young of her race that surround 

 her. We must not, however, expect to find much maternal love in a 

 bird which will break her own eggs to gratify an unnatural appetite. 

 -^The Pheasant, although wary, is at times unaccountably stupid ; 

 thus it falls an easy victim to the poacher. 



Although they breed in a wild state in Britain, Pheasants are 

 principally raised in enclosures called pheasantries, where all the 

 necessaries to existence are provided for them. As the females are 

 bad mothers, it is not unusual for their eggs to be hatched by domestic 

 fowls. During the first two months of existence the young pheasants 

 require the greatest care, for they are predisposed to numerous 

 maladies. Ants' eggs are their favourite food. 



The flesh of the mature bird is very savoury, but rather dry ; and 

 epicures consider it ought not to be eaten till it has been hung a long 

 time and become ''high," a requisite thought necessary with the 

 majority of game. There is one very curious peculiarity common 

 to certain birds belonging to the family of which we have been 

 speaking, and which is especially remarkable in the Pheasants it 

 is that when old females become unfruitful they assume the plumage 

 of males. It is said that young Pheasants undergo the same change 

 when deprived of their reproductive organs. 



The Golden Pheasant (Phasianus pictus, PLATE XIX.) and the 

 Silver Pheasant (P. nycthemerus), are two beautiful birds, originally 

 from China and Japan, and now naturalised to Europe. The former, 

 clothed in purple and gold, bears a golden-yellow tuft on its head ; 

 the black-and-white costume of the latter is not inferior in beauty to 

 the preceding. Linnaeus has named them Nycthemerus (the night 

 and the day). There are also the Ring-necked or Collared Pheasant, 

 slightly different from the Common Pheasant, which for some years 

 has propagated rapidly in France and England ; * Reeves's Pheasant, 

 indigenous to China, where it is rather rare, and very highly prized 



* Tins species is originally from China, where I have frequently shot them. 

 In their native haunts they are larger than the semi-domesticated bird. ED. 



