THE MONGOLAN PHEASANT. 185 



With, regard to the true Mongolian, the Hon. Walter 

 Rothschild, writing in the Field of June 20, 1903, says : 



" I have, however, had a number of the true Mongolian 

 pheasant (P. mongolicus) alive at Tring for two or three 

 years, and have had a number of young, both pure and 

 half-bred, hatched and reared in our coverts, and those which 

 were shot proved much superior in flavour and size to 

 ordinary pheasants. Cock birds hatched in June were as 

 full plumaged and weighed as much as two-year-old common 

 pheasants/' 



Testimony to the value of the Mongolian cross was 

 adduced by a correspondent who, writing in the Field of 

 January 16, 1909, says, " On the estate where I have recently 

 been shooting, for some years the Chinese pheasant 

 (P. torquatus) has been reared, and splendid shots they have 

 given. But for the last three years Mongolians have been 

 introduced, and some of them have been crossed with the 

 Chinese; tbe result is that the birds this year have shown 

 better sport than ever. They rise freely to the beaters, and 

 fly boldly, very fast and high ; in fact, if flushed on rising 

 ground they fly almost too high to be reached. On one 

 occasion when we were shooting, there was a very high wind, 

 and the birds were flushed on a hillside over the guns placed 

 in the valley ; no one who saw them fly could possibly saythat 

 they were lazy on the wing and never gave a good sporting 

 shot ; in fact, if anything, they were too active on the wing 

 and took such long flights that many of them went straight 

 away out of that day's beat." The keeper on this estate 

 gave it as his opinion that the chicks were very hardy and 

 easier to rear than those of the common pheasant. 



It is exceedingly satisfactory to know that the half-bred 

 P. mongolicus have proved successful in the coverts. At 

 Tring, several hundreds were reared, and came to the gun in 

 1903. The male hybrids have very much the appearance of 

 the pure P. mongolicus, as shown in the coloured engraving 

 (frontispiece), the wing coverts are not so clear in the white : 



