THE PHEASANT 55 



there is no meeting of parties of rival males as is the case among 

 the Grouse tribe : such as do meet engage at once in conflict likely 

 to be serious, for the spurs wherewith the feet are armed are 

 formidable weapons. During such contests the combatants fight 

 after the fashion of game-cocks, with lowered heads, a spring into 

 the air, and a swift, vicious, downward plunge of the spurs. Such 

 combats are rarely fatal, yet the males seem to behave with peculiar 

 savagery towards their mates, spurring them on the back till it is 

 literally torn to pieces : sometimes the wretched female is killed 

 outright by a sudden thrust of the spur into the back of the skull. 

 Curiously enough, the hens sometimes fight with one another during 

 the spring, and the cause of the quarrel may be readily guessed. 

 Mr. Millais has remarked that during the spring the males utter a 

 crooning or chuckling note wherewith to call the females to partake 

 of some special tit-bit he has discovered, and over which, till her 

 arrival, he stands with lowered head and feathers all on end. 

 The state of nervous exaltation which possesses the males at this 

 season is demonstrated by the challenges which distant males hurl 

 at one another throughout their waking hours, making the woods 

 resound with a peculiar and strident "koch-koch" uttered two or 

 three times in quick succession, and followed by a flapping of the 

 wings. This wing flapping recalls the like accompaniment to the 

 crowing of the barn-door cock, but in this case the crow precedes, 

 instead of follows, the flapping. But thunder, bands, distant 

 explosions, or indeed any loud noise will, at any time, set all the 

 cock pheasants in a wood calling. 



As in the case of the Grouse tribe, there is a second period of 

 display in the autumn, but this is of short duration, and lacks the 

 fire of the spring performances. Curiously enough, the young males 

 begin to fight among themselves in September, and such mock 

 combats, for such we must suppose they are, are continued on into 

 October and November, when they are full grown. Thus, then, the 

 courtship of the pheasant bears no likeness, in its happenings, to 



