644 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



like failure. About thirty years ago, however, a successful effort was 

 made to introduce the ringneck pheasant into Oregon, and since then 

 acclimatization experiments have followed broader lines and have 

 assumed greater importance. It will be convenient to consider these 

 later ventures by states. 



Pheasants in Fields and Covert. The failure of many efforts to 

 add pheasants to our fauna is largely due to insufficient knowledge of 

 their habits and the character of their normal environment. It is 

 useless to undertake to acclimatize a bird in a region differing widely 

 in climatic and other physical conditions from those to which it has 

 been accustomed. Thus, an attempt to introduce into one of the 

 prairie States the common blood pheasant (Ithaginis cruentus), 

 which inhabits the Himalayas at from 10,000 to 14,000 feet eleva- 

 tion, would result in failure. 



It must be remembered, also, that introduced birds have to adapt 

 themselves to a new flora and fauna, and that this is often a slow 

 process and frequently fails. If liberated in the wilds, they must be 

 provided with reserve food and shelter until able to care for them- 

 selves, which may take several years. In Oregon the ringnecks put 

 out came at first regularly to farmyards to feed with the domestic 

 fowls; and English ringnecks liberated on Grand Island, Michigan, 

 were driven back by severe weather to the pens from which they had 

 been allowed to escape a few months before. 



If pheasants are imported for stocking preserves, suitable coverts 

 should be prepared for them. In their native country pheasants 

 frequerrt, the margins of woods, coming into open tracts in search of 

 food and retreating into thick undergrowth when alarmed. An ideal 

 pheasant country is one containing small groves with underbrush 

 and high grass between the trees, thorny hedges, berry-growing 

 shrubs, water overgrown with reeds, and occasional pastures, mea- 

 dows, and cultivated grainfields. Bleak mountains, dry sandy wastes, 

 and thick woods are not frequented by pheasants normally; nor do 

 they seek pines, except for protection. A small grove of mixed ever- 

 green and deciduous trees on the southern slope of a hill furnishes 

 favorable shelter. 



On the preserve additional shelter should be provided in winter. 

 Rude huts or even stacks of straw will serve. Suitable food should 

 be planted such as buckwheat, millet, corn, cabbages, and turnips. 

 Stacks of unthreshed grain or of beans may be placed about the 

 preserve. 



When shooting is permitted, it is not wise to shoot only the 

 cocks. If all the hens are spared, they will increase out of proper 

 proportion, to the detriment of both quantity and quality of the prog- 

 eny. Very old cocks and hens should be destroyed. Old cocks are 

 inferior for breeding purposes, and old hens will frequently beat off 

 2- and 3-year-old hens and prevent their mating. 



METHODS OF PROPAGATION. 



Obtaining Stock. A pheasantry may be started with mature 

 birds or with eggs, the latter to be hatched by barnyard fowls. Many 

 are tempted to begin with eggs because of smaller cost, but the uncer- 



