COMMON PHEASANT. 315 



obliged to secure their safety by flight, Pheasants seldom 

 use their wings, except as before noticed, at night and 

 morning : nor have they much occasion, as a mode of pro- 

 gression ; the facility and speed with which they can get 

 over the ground by running is quite surprising. Pheasants 

 do not pair, and except during the spring, the males and 

 females do not even associate. During the shooting season 

 the males are found together, and are also observed to 

 be much more wary and on the alert than the females. 

 An old cock Pheasant immediately on hearing a dog give 

 tongue in a wood where he is, will foot away to the nearest 

 corner, particularly if the wood be open at bottom, and 

 from thence run one dry ditch or hedgerow after another for 

 half a mile to the next covert ; but a hen Pheasant seems 

 to trust to her brown colour to escape detection, and squat- 

 ting in any bit of long grass that is near her, often sur- 

 prises and startles the young shooter, not a little, by boun- 

 cing up with a rattling noise close at his feet, and the poor 

 frightened bird is frequently indebted to the sensation thus 

 created for a clear escape. The brown earth-like colour of 

 the plumage of the females of several species of Pheasants 

 seems to be a bountiful provision, not only for their indivi- 

 dual safety, but in a degree for the preservation of the 

 whole race. Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings, has truly ob- 

 served that, " while we admire the dazzling plumage of a 

 male bird, we may wonder why the female appears so 

 infinitely below him in the scale of beauty. Is it because 

 she is to be considered as more degraded, or as an inferior 

 being? When we see the male expanding his rich and 

 varied plumage in the sunbeams, let us not forget that 

 on the female devolves all the offices of love and affection. 

 She hatches, feeds, and protects, at the risk of her life, her 

 helpless young ones ; and what we may consider as lower- 



