164 



KEARTONS' NATURE PICTURES 



A SITTING PHEASANT. 



incubation, very little scent is thrown 

 off the bird's body, and her enemies are 

 thus deprived of their greatest chance 

 of discovering her. Sometimes a nest 

 may be found at the foot of a tree 

 without any kind of surrounding vegeta- 

 tion calculated to hide it, or amongst 

 comparatively short grass in an open 

 field. 



The structure consists of a slight 

 hollow, lined with a few dead leaves, 

 blades of withered grass, bracken or 

 fern fronds, with which the bird covers 

 her eggs whenever she leaves them of 

 her own accord. 



The eggs, which are generally laid 

 throughout April and May, number from 

 eight to thirteen as a rule, although 

 as many as seventeen may sometimes 

 be found. They are usually olive brown 

 in colour, but specimens may sometimes 

 be found of a greyish white, tinged with 

 green or bluish green. 



Female Pheasants make but indifferent 

 mothers, and frequently lose several 

 members of a brood through not going 

 back to the place where the family was 

 scattered by some sudden alarm. 



Young Pheasants sleep on the ground 

 amongst potatoes and other cover until 

 their first moult, but I have known 

 hand-reared birds take to the trees the 

 very first night after they have been 

 turned into a wood, greatly to the distress 

 of their foster mothers left in the coops 

 below. 



