PHEASANT. f 97 



observes that " they have such plenty of pheasants, as I 

 have known sixty served up at one feast, and abound much 

 more with rails, but partridges are somewhat scarce. 1 ' (Descr. 

 of Ireland, ii. p. 368.) Smith seems to have imagined that 

 Pheasants were indigenous to the island, as in his History of 

 Cork it is remarked : " They are now [1749] indeed very 

 rare, most of our woods being cut down." At the present 

 day it is generally distributed throughout the wooded parts 

 of the island. 



Up to the en$ of the last century our Pheasant had 

 deviated but little, if indeed at all, from the typical 

 P. cokhicus ; but about that time the introduction of the 

 Chinese Ring-necked bird, P. torquatus, commenced. The 

 males of this hardy species, although smaller in size than 

 the English birds, are exceedingly pugnacious, and per- 

 haps also the beauty of their plumage rendered them pecu- 

 liarly attractive to the hens. At all events, in a polyga- 

 mous bird like the Pheasant, they rapidly effected a con- 

 siderable alteration in the breed, and at the present day it 

 is difficult to find birds without some trace of hybridism. 

 Some offsprings of the first cross are, indeed, scarcely to be 

 distinguished from the Chinese bird ; and although many of 

 the features of that species are gradually bred out, yet the 

 characteristic white ring is long retained. The beautiful 

 Japanese Pheasant, P. versicolor, has also been introduced 

 in small numbers ; some magnificent hybrids being the 

 result, although the influences of the cross have not proved 

 lasting. Examples :of the splendid long-tailed P. reevesi 

 have also been turned out, and in some districts they have 

 succeeded very well ; as many as sixty having been shot in a 

 single season in the covers of Lord Tweedmouth in Inver- 

 ness-shire. Lord Lilford, who presented to the British 

 Museum a fine male hybrid shot in Sussex in December, 

 1879, says that they have done fairly in Northamptonshire, 

 but considers that in this country a wide range of hill 

 coverts would be most suitable to them ; whilst for the 

 table, he thinks they are distinctly superior to our com- 

 mon bird. The so-called Bohemian Pheasant is merely 



VOL. III. 



