PHEASANT. 209 



and for this reason, they are apt to spoil your dogs. 

 Red legged partridges being constantly on the run, 

 are difficult to disperse ; but by means of heading 

 them, with men on horseback, their coveys, or packs, 

 may be divided, and this being once done, they will 

 lie like stones. 



PHEASANTS. Phasianus cokhicusLe faisau. 

 Besides the common pheasant, there are now in 

 preferred ronvAv, ax well aft aviaries, other beautiful 

 kinds, which have been mostly brought from China ; 

 viz. the golden pheasant ; silver or pled pheasant, 

 &c. ; and also two varieties of the common one, the 

 one of which is precisely like it, except having a white 

 ring round the neck, from which it is distinguished 

 by the name of ring pheasant : and the other of pure 

 white, which I had (it appears erroneously) supposed 

 to be a mule bird between the common pheasant and 

 the barn door fowl, partaking of the shape and habits 

 of the former, with the colour and taste of the latter. 

 What led me to think so was, that these birds ap- 

 peared without any one having originally imported 

 the breed, or even any variety, but where the com- 

 mon pheasants were often seen among the white barn 

 door fowls. In a small covert of my own I had one 

 nide of twelve, in which were hatched nine common 

 and three white pheasants. But, since the foregoing 

 surmise appeared in a former edition, I was favoured 

 with observations from a superior ornithologist, which 

 I am sure will be far more worthy the attention of 



p 



