312 PHASIANID^E. 



whole county of Northumberland, Mr. Selby yet observes 

 in his work, that although the Pheasant has been for such 

 a length of time a naturalised inhabitant of this country, 

 the cause of its preservation must be referred, not so much 

 to the wildness of its nature, as to the care and expense 

 bestowed to that end by noblemen, and other considerable 

 landed proprietors, without which the breed would, in all 

 probability, have been long since extinct. Independent of 

 the beauty of its plumage as an object of acquisition, the 

 high estimation it bears at the tables of the wealthy and 

 luxurious proves too tempting an inducement for the 

 poacher, whose facilities are greatly increased by the pecu- 

 liar habits of the species. 



Woods that are thick at the bottom, with long grass 

 kept up by brambles and bushes, thick plantations, or 

 marshy islands and moist grounds overgrown with rushes, 

 reeds, or osiers, are the favourite resorts of Pheasants, in 

 default of which they take to thick hedgerows, but can 

 seldom be induced to remain long on any ground bare of 

 shelter, however undisturbed. Wood and water are con- 

 sidered indispensable. 



The short crow of the males may be heard in March, 

 and the females begin to lay their eggs in April, and hatch 

 them by the end of May or the beginning of June. They 

 make but little nest upon the ground, in which they de- 

 posit from ten to fourteen eggs, which are of a uniform 

 olive brown colour, one inch ten lines long, by one inch five 

 lines in breadth. The number of eggs that are occasion- 

 ally found together appear to prove that two hen Phea- 

 sants will sometimes lay in one nest ; and where game is 

 strictly preserved, and the quantity considerable, Phea- 

 sants' eggs are occasionally found in the nest of the Par- 

 tridge, so unsteady are they in their half reclaimed state. 



