STRUCTURE, FOOD. AND HABITS. 17 



removed by tlie parent birds^ and if so^ by wliat means ; even 

 the following accounts do not throw much light upon the 

 subject. In the Zoologist for 1894 (p. 266) the late Lord 

 Lilford wrote that a pheasant had appropriated a wood- 

 pigeon's nest, in which sho laid nine eggs. Three young 

 lairds were afterwards found dead at the foot of the tree 

 which contained the nest, the inference being that the 

 Temainder of the bi'ood had reached the ground in safety. A 

 correspondent of The Field stated that " A hen pheasant made 

 her nest in an oak tree, about nine feet from the ground. 

 'The young were hatched, and she succeeded in taking seven 

 young ones safely to the ground, leaving five dead in the nest, 

 ■and one bad egg." A second stated that in the park at 

 Fillingham, Lincoln, a pheasant deposited eight eggs in the 

 nest of a woodpigeon in a fir tree upwards of sixteen feet 

 from the ground ; she hatched out seven of them, but was 

 unfortunate, as four were killed ; they were supposed to have 

 fallen from the nest. A third reported that on the estate of 

 rthe Marquis of Hereford, at Sudborne Hall, Suffolk, a 

 pheasant had taken possession of a nest deserted by a sparrow- 

 hawk, in a spruce fir, twenty-five feet from the ground, and 

 hatched eight young ones, seven of which she succeeded in 

 bringing safely down, but in what manner was not stated. 

 Mr. Arthur Cole, of Eccles Hall, Attleborough, Norfolk, 

 writing in 1897, states that " on May 7 I found a pheasant 

 sitting on eight eggs in an old squirrel's nest 16ft. 7in. from 

 the ground. It is the more curious as the nest is by no means 

 on strong boughs, and, therefore, must sway tremendously as 

 the bird goes on and off." 



Although as a rule the male pheasant takes no heed of the 

 ■eggs laid by the female, or of the ofispring when hatched, 

 there are some well ascertained exceptions. Wild cock 

 pheasants have been seen sitting in nests in the coverts by 

 perfectly credible witnesses; and, although it has been 

 suggested that the birds might have been hens that had 

 ^assumed the male plumage, such an occurrence is even more 



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