546 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



quail is smaller than the bob-white and has its black 

 under parts spangled with white spots and its head 

 curiously striped with black and white. 



All of these quail, with the possible exception of the 

 Gambell's, have been giving way before the advance 

 of agriculture and the ever increasing number of hunt- 

 ers. In spite of their great reproductive capacity, the 

 laws regulating the open seasons and the number that 

 can be killed will have to be stiffened to make up for 

 the increasing number of hunters and their decreasing 

 range. One encouraging feature is the fact that they 



Photograph by G. C. Embody 



AT HOME IN THE GARDEN 



The male Bob-White stays at home by the garden gate while Mrs. White 

 goes to a garden party. 



are now being bred in captivity .and each year sees the 

 methods employed on the game farms reaching greater 

 perfection and larger and larger numbers being raised. 

 It is with the pheasants however, that game farming 

 has reached its greatest perfection and succeeded in 

 adding a valuable bird to the faunas of many states of 

 the Union. 



The Pheasants (Family Phasianidae) 



Were it not for the game farmer, we would not be 

 considering the pheasants in this series of articles, for 

 none of them are native to North America. There are 

 about 100 species of true pheasants found through Cen- 

 tral and Southern Asia to the Malayan region. The 

 majority are brilliant birds, though the females are 

 dull, and many species are seen in the aviaries in this 

 country. The resplendent golden and Lady Amherst 

 pheasants, from Western and Southern China, with 

 their wonderful capes and arched tails are perhaps the 

 most brilliant of all. The golden pheasant has been 

 released in Western Oregon and on Protection Island, 

 Washington with some success, and the silver, the 



copper, and the green pheasants, also, but the only 

 one that has been really successfully naturalized is the 

 ring-necked pheasant which may now be considered a 

 member of the famous of at least 25 states. 



The ring-necked pheasant is not a real species but is 

 a hybrid between the English pheasant {Phasianus 

 colchicus) and the Chinese ring-neck (P. torquatus) 

 and was brought over from England where it originated. 

 The male is a very ornamental bird with a bright metal- 

 lic green head and a more or less continuous white ring 

 around the neck. Its breast is a rich coppery chestnut, 

 its back marked with gold and chestnut, the rump being 

 greenish gray and the long tail banded with rich brown 

 arid buff. The female is light brown, spotted with darker 

 on the back and were it not for her long pointed tail, 

 might be confused with some of our native grouse. 



Naturalizing a foreign bird or animal in any land is 



NOT A TURKEY TROT-BUT A PHEASANT STRIDE 



All the gallinaceous birds make a track similar to this the toes spreading 

 more than 90 degrees and the hind toe barely recording. The grouse and 

 bob-white, however, usually drag their toes and seldom make a clean 

 track like the pheasant. 



a risky undertaking as evidenced by the English spar- 

 row and the starling in this country which have in- 

 creased far beyond control and instead of functioning, 

 as intended, in the destruction of insects, are rapidly 

 replacing more valuable native birds. The naturaliza- 

 tion of the pheasant seems to present no such difficul- 

 ties, for although it is likely to become destructive to 

 crops when too abundant, it will always be such a valu- 

 able addition to the food supply that the slightest re- 



