16 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHHASANTS. 
and fear in being separated from his friends and protectors. Dick is a great 
favourite, and on this account is suffered to take many liberties. When breakfast 
is brought in he jumps on the table, and very unceremoniously helps himself to 
bread, or to whatever he takes a fancy; but, different from the magpie or jackdaw 
under similar circumstances, Dick is easily checked. He is fond of stretching 
himself in the sunbeams; and if this be not attainable, before the kitchen fire. 
On being taken into the house he was presented to the view of the cat, the latter 
at the same time given to understand that the bird was privileged, and that she 
must not disturb him. The cat is evidently not fond of Dick as an inmate, but, 
she abstains from violence. I have seen her, it is true, give him a blow with her 
paw, but this only occurs when the bird attempts to take bread, &c., from her; 
and not always then, as she frequently suffers herself to be robbed by him. Dick 
has also made friends with my pointers. He sleeps in my bed-room, but is by no 
means so early a riser as his fraternity in a state of nature; however, when he 
comes forth his antics are amusing enough; he shakes himself, jumps and flies 
about the room for several minutes, and then descends into the breakfast room.” 
Whether this bird would or would not have continued tame and domesticated 
during the following breeding season was unfortunately never ascertained, as it 
partook of the fate of most pets, and was killed accidentally by the opening of 
a door. 
The incapacity of pheasants for domestication has been remarked by all those 
who have tried in vain to rear them as domestic birds. The late Mr. Charles 
Waterton, of Walton Hall, made the attempt under the most advantageous cireum- 
stances, and thus recounts the result of his experiments: ‘ Notwithstanding the 
proximity of the pheasant to the nature of the barndoor fowl, still it has that within 
it which baffles every attempt on our part to render its domestication complete. 
What I allude to is, a most singular innate timidity, which never fails to show 
itself on the sudden and abrupt appearance of an object. I spent some months in 
trying to overcome this timorous propensity in the pheasant, but I failed completely 
in the attempt. The young birds, which had been hatched under a domestic hen, 
soon became very tame, and would even receive food from the hand when it was 
offered cautiously to them. They would fly up to the window, and would feed in 
company with the common poultry, but if anybody approached them unawares, off 
they went to the nearest covert with surprising velocity; they remained in it till all 
was quiet, and then returned with their usual confidence. Two of them lost their 
lives in the water by the unexpected appearance of a pointer, while the barndoor 
fowls seemed scarcely to notice the presence of the intruder; the rest took finally to 
the woods at the commencement of the breeding season. This particular kind of 
timidity, which does not appear in our domestic fowls, seems to me to oppose the 
ouly, though at the same time an unsurmountable, bar to our final triumph over 
