PHEASANT SHOOTING. 57 



is too cold for it. It is only by strict preservation that the 

 breed of this beautiful and delicious bird can be kept up ; for 

 though if left alone it would undoubtedly find food, yet the 

 attacks of poachers are so keen that unless it is protected it 

 would soon be exterminated by them. It is supposed to 

 have been first imported from the banks of the Phasis, a 

 river of Colchis in Asia Minor (now called Mingrelia), from 

 which it has derived its name. Its appearance is too well 

 known to need description, but it may be mentioned that 

 buff and pied varieties are by no means uncommon, a pure 

 white bird being also sometimes met with. Pheasants are 

 fond of thick underwood, especially where there are moist 

 bottoms here and there, and brambles overgrown with climb- 

 ing plants, in which are runs inaccessible to man, are their 

 especial delight. They are polygamous in their habits, and 

 the males begin to crow, in order to attract the hens, early 

 in March. In April the eggs are laid, a very inartificial 

 nest being made on the ground, generally at some little dis- 

 tance from the principal covert, and often in a hedge-row or 

 in some small brake or spinuy, where they are not likely to 

 be molested by others of their own species. The eggs are on 

 the average about twelve in number, of a pale olive brown, 

 one inch ten lines long by one inch five lines in breadth. The 

 weight of the cock pheasant averages about two and a half to 

 three pounds, but instances have been known of its reach- 

 ing to double the former weight. It is not very unusual to 

 meet with a fat bird of four and a half pounds, but beyond 

 this there is only one instance on record, namely, in The 

 Field of February 25, 1859, where a cock pheasant weighing 

 5 1 Ibs. is said to have been killed by Mr. H. Akroyd, Bocl- 

 dington Park, Nantwich. 



The pheasant readily breeds with the common fowl, and 

 hybrids with the black grouse are sometimes produced. The 

 modes of rearing and preserving pheasants, and the dis- 

 eases to which they are subject, will be found described in the 

 fifth book, as belonging to the duties of the gamekeeper. 



The HARE (Lepus timidiui), as existing in our woods and 

 coverts, only belongs to one variety; the Irish hare and the 

 mountain hare not being inhabitants of them. The RABBIT 

 also (Lepus cuniculus), being well known, need not be 



