250 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



But old cock-pheasants are said to " gain wisdom 

 by experience," and to have recourse to many 

 stratagems to effect their escape when they find 

 themselves to be pursued. The hen appears to 

 trust to her quiet brown-hued plumage to shun 

 detection, and she will squat in any bit of long 

 grass that is near at hand, often surprising and 

 startling the young sportsman by bouncing up 

 with a whirring noise close against his feet, and 

 not unseldom owing her safety to this fact. 



The ordinary weight of a male pheasant is about 

 two pounds and a half, but when well preserved 

 and highly fed they have been known to exceed 

 four pounds. They are then plumper and fatter 

 than barn door fowls, and exceedingly rich in 

 plumage. Mr. Warburton makes this complaint 

 against his pheasants that they deprived him of 

 the gratification he used to enjoy in listening to 

 the lively chirp of the grasshoppers ; " they have 

 completely exterminated this merry charmer in 

 my park," he says. 



The pheasant sometimes becomes extremely 

 pugnacious in disposition, as the following facts 

 will show. Not far from a large wood there was 

 a farm-house at which game fowls were kept, 

 who roosted at night in an oak-tree close by the 

 borders of the wood, One morning the cock, a 

 fine young bird, was found under his perch dead, 



