

THE CHINESE PHEASANT. 171 



perfectly fertile, not only with either pure race, but also 

 inter se. They are, however, variable in plumage, the amount 

 of white in the neck varying from four or five feathers to a 

 nearly complete circle, and the feathers on the flanks being 

 intermediate between the beautiful spotted buff of the pure 

 Chinese and the dark colour of the common bird. These 

 ring-necks are now common in most parts of the country 

 where pheasants are preserved. The good points of the 

 Chinese are largely shared by their half-bred progeny ; hence 

 the cross between the common and the Chinese is a valuable 

 introduction to our preserves, retaining as it does to so great 

 a degree the beauty and early fertility of the pure Chinese 

 race, to which it adds great hardihood and larger size, but the 

 birds are generally regarded as more apt to stray, and some 

 gourmets maintain they are not quite so good a bird on the 

 table as the pure-bred P. colchicus. 



The extent to which the interbreeding of the two species 

 has taken place is well shown in the following interesting 

 account taken from Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk " : " In 

 its semi- domesticated state, like our pigeons and poultry, 

 the common pheasant crosses readily with its kindred species, 

 and to so great an extent has this been carried in Norfolk 

 that, except in the wholly unpreserved districts, it is difficult 

 at the present time to find a perfect specimen of the old 

 English type (P. colchicus) without some traces, however 

 slight, of the ring-neck, and other marked features of the 

 Chinese pheasant (P. torquatus], and in many localities of the 

 Japanese (P. versicolor). In looking over a large number of 

 pheasants from different coverts, as I have frequently done of 

 late years in our fish market, I have noticed every shade of 

 difference from the nearly pure-bred ring-neck, with its buff- 

 coloured flanks and rich tints of lavender, and green on the 

 wing and tail-coverts, to the common pheasant in its brilliant 

 but less varied plumage, with but one feather in its glossy 

 neck just tipped with a speck of white. Some birds of 

 the first cross are scarcely distinguishable from the true 



