The Versicolor Pheasant. 55 



Versicolors are exquisitely beautiful, and yet they 

 have not a single gaudy colour. The cock flaps his 

 wings like the common cock ; his crow is very similar, 

 only rather hoarser. He has a deep rifle-green head ; 

 wattles red, with minute black feathers all over them ; 

 his horns are longer in proportion than those of the 

 common pheasant. The colours of the head shade 

 off on the neck into metallic blue and green ; back 

 glaucous-grey; shoulder markings like those of the 

 common pheasant ; under part of throat and breast 

 rifle-green; wing coverts glaucous-grey; tail ditto, with 

 black bars, and fringed with dark chestnut. The cock 

 is a perfect dandy, strutting with most dignified step. 

 The hen is much more marked than the common 

 pheasant, her whole plumage being of a richer brown, 

 with dark, arrow-shaped markings on it, and a white 

 spot under the eye. 



Being true pheasants, Versicolors attain full plumage 

 after the first moult. The eggs are smaller than the 

 commcn pheasant's. The young require no special 

 treatment ; they are extremely fond of lettuce, and, 

 before they are thirty-six hours old, will fairly bolt 

 pieces certainly as large as a shilling one is surprised 

 how they get it down ; at all times I think they are 

 the largest feeders of any pheasant I have kept. 

 During the breeding season, the males are most 

 pugnacious, and will attack anyone when entering 

 the pens ; hence, they are not so easily tamed as 

 other yarieties. They are very apt to fly up on any- 

 one going near the aviary ; this causes them to strike 



