38 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



On the continent of Europe the pheasant is widely diffused 

 throughout almost all the congenial localities in the south and 

 central portions, where any effort is made in favour of its pro- 

 tection. In Scandinavia it has been successfully introduced ; 

 in 1867 we were informed by Mr. L. Lloyd, in his " Game 

 Birds in Sweden and Norway," that it is not found, although 

 attempts on a large scale were made to introduce it by the 

 late King Oscar ; but from the severity of the climate, and 

 from the country swarming with vermin and birds of prey of 

 all sorts, the experiment, in Mr. Lloyd's opinion, was not 

 likely to be attended with success. Since that date the 

 attempt has been successfully made by Baron Oscar Dickson, 

 who, in 1873, reared seven or eight hundred birds. These 

 have done well, for, in the Morgenblad of November 10, 1877, 

 it is recorded that " Mr. (now Baron) Oscar Dickson and 

 party shot in one day, on his property, Bokedal, in Sweden, 

 ninety pheasants, one deer, one hare, and one woodcock. 

 There were five guns." And the same journal mentions that 

 a brace of pheasants lived at full liberty on an estate in the 

 neighbourhood of Christiania during the winter of 1876-7 

 without being fed or taken care of, and that they hatched in 

 he summer of 1877, and reared four full-grown young ones. 

 A brace more were let loose early in the spring of the same 

 year, and also hatched and reared in the open. The first 

 brace escaped from a pen, and nobody knew what had become 

 of them. It was supposed that they were either frozen to 

 death during the severe winter, had died of starvation, or had 

 fallen an easy prey to foxes, cats, or hawks. But they 

 survived, and found both shelter and food for themselves. 

 Since that date they have increased rapidly, and on November 

 14 and 15, 1893, the Crown Prince shot over the Baron's 

 preserves on the Island Wisingso, in the Wetter Lakes, 

 when 1548 pheasants were killed by six guns. 



In New Zealand, the Great Britain of the southern 

 hemisphere, the introduction of the pheasant has been a great 

 success; so much so, that in a single season, that of 1871, 



