200 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



no special reason for sparing a pied pheasant that has 

 come to his coverts he shoots it at the first chance 

 for the sake of the few seconds' pleasure 

 a e given by the curious plumage before it is 



tossed with the rest on the game-cart. 

 But the keeper silently mourns for the death of the 

 pied bird. If he voices his lament, he receives a 

 stock answer : " Well, it is too late now." Happy 

 the keeper who succeeds in catching up a bird that 

 he treasures, so that he may give it safe shelter 

 until the rattle of guns is silenced. 



* 



" Once a pied bird always a pied bird " is the expres- 

 sion of a common fallacy. A pheasant may be almost 



white for months, then change colour, and 

 Colour- become hardly different from other birds. 

 Changes ^ p e j ^^ tends to become more pied as 

 Feathers the time of moulting approaches. A homely 



illustration of this increasing lightness of 

 colour is seen when a black cat is about to change 

 its coat ; then the fur turns a rusty brown. When 

 this is shed the new growth seems blacker than ever. 

 A black cat or dog with white marks nearly always 

 has young with similar markings. And if you have 

 a white or pied hen pheasant, in spite of the fact that 

 after a moult her new feathers may come of the 

 ordinary brown shade, you may expect, perhaps, 

 half the chicks from her eggs to wear their mother's 



