PHEASANTS 



FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



CHAPTER I. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANTS, 



STRUCTURE, FOOD, AND HABITS. 



HE PHEASANTS, properly so called (as dis- 

 tinguished from the allied but perfectly distinct 

 genera which include the Gold and Silver pheasants, 



the Kaleege, the Monaul, &c.), constitute the genus or 



group known to naturalists under the title Phasianus. 



Of the true pheasants no fewer than thirteen distinct 

 species have been described by Mr. D. G. Elliott, in his 

 splendid folio monograph on the Phasianidae. Of these 

 several are known only by rare specimens of the skins 

 brought from little explored Asiatic countries, and others 

 cannot be regarded as anything more than mere local or 

 geographical varieties of well-known species. Since the 

 publication of Elliott's Phasianidse several additional species 

 have been described. 



Mr. Ogilvie-Grant in his valuable " Handbook on Game 

 Birds " published in Allen's " Natural History " enumerates 

 as many as eighteen species of true pheasants belonging to 

 the genus Phasianus, of which he takes the common species, 

 Phasianus colchicus, as the type, and additional species have 



B 



