The pheasant, like the grouse, is a cold country bird, 

 and the mild and dry climate of California does not ap- 

 peal to their peculiar tastes or the requirements of their 

 physical being. Oregon, however, possesses the cli- 

 matic, floral and entomic conditions for which nature 

 has fitted them. Green vegetation lasts during the 

 whole season in which they rear their young, thus fur- 

 nishing them with that abundance of insects necessary 

 to the health and nourishment of the young chicks. 

 They are endowed with certain physical attributes for 

 which the cold of winter is necessary to preserve a 

 continued healthful condition, and this, too, they find 

 in Oregon. In fact this constitutional demand for the 

 cold of winter has been by nature so strongly implanted 

 within them that the rearing of thirty generations in 

 the comparatively mild climate of Oregon has not ef- 

 faced it, and obeying this primal instinct they have 

 migiated through Washington and into the better-loved 

 and colder winters of British Columbia. 



Therefore, while California undoubtedly may have an 

 abundance of wild turkeys, quail in unlimited numbers 

 and of two or three more species than we have at pres- 

 ent, the timber and the plain tinamus of South America, 

 and possibly the sand grouse of southern Europe, she 

 will never have pheasants unless they be of the ex- 

 treme southern varieties, and never have more than a 

 limited supply of grouse. 



North of the mountains of southern Oregon and 

 through Washington into British Columbia pheasants 

 are plentiful and furnish the principal sport of the 

 lovers of upland shooting of that section of the Pacific 

 Coast. The Mongolian pheasant as a game bird has his 

 merits and demerits. As a large, beautiful plumaged 

 bird to grace the game bag the pheasant stands with- 

 out a rival. As a table bird the pheasant is only sur- 

 passed in delicacy of flavor by the wild turkey. As an 

 aggravating runner from the dog the pheasant is in a 

 class by itself, and as an evader of all pursuit when 

 wounded, "the Chinaman," as they are generally called 

 in Oregon, can give odds to the gambel quail. Though 

 the pheasant is a large bird and able to carry off a 

 good deal of shot, it starts so slow to one accustomed 

 to the rapid flight of the California quail that a rea- 

 sonably fair shot will find no difficulty in getting the 

 limit with a sixteen gauge. 



They are slow starters, caused by their habit of rising 

 at an angle of forty-five to fifty degrees until they reach 

 a height of about ten feet before their rapid flight be- 

 37 



