POWER OF SWIMMING. 7 
keel on the breast bone. The tail is long, and tapers to a point; it is composed 
of eighteen straight pointed feathers. 
The pheasant, like most of its congeners, is a terrestrial bird, seeking its 
food, making its nest, and rearing its young upon the surface of the ground. Its 
legs, like those of all true rasorial or scratching birds, are strong and muscular, 
consequently it is capable of running with great speed. The strong blunt claws are 
admirably adapted for scratching seeds and tuberous roots from the ground, or 
worms and larve from beneath fallen leaves. 
Though seldom taking voluntarily to the water, the pheasant is quite capable 
of the power of swimming, as is proved by the following instances. A well-known 
game preserver writes: ‘When out walking to-day with my keeper, near the end of 
a long pond running under one of my woods, we fancied that we heard some young 
pheasants calling in the high grass. On going up to the place where we had heard 
the noise, an old hen pheasant got up and flew over the pond, which is about 
eighteen or nineteen feet wide at this place and about four feet deep. To our 
astonishment one of the young birds ran down to the water, went: into it, and 
swam safely to the other side after its mother. The young birds could not 
have been more than fourteen days old.” Old birds will also voluntarily swim 
across rivers, as in the following instance: ‘“ While flogging the waters of the 
Usk, I saw a sight that struck me with astonishment. A fine cock pheasant 
was walking about on the bank of the river, here quite thirty yards broad and 
running at the rate of four knots an hour. On our approach he quietly took to 
the water like a duck, and, after floating down stream a few yards, boldly struck 
across, and, swimming high and with great ease, reached the bank nearly opposite 
to the spot whence he set out.’? And other similar cases are on record, thus— 
Mr. Donald Campbell, of Dunstafforage, Oban, states, “Six pheasants, five cocks 
and a hen, attempted to fly across Loch Etive from one of the Ardchattan coverts 
on the north side of the loch, which near that spot varies from half a mile to a 
mile in width. When about half-way across one of them was seen either to fall 
or alight on the water, and its example was immediately followed by the other five. 
Fortunately, the son of the Ardchattan gamekeeper, who was in a boat on the 
loch at the time, observed the occurrence, and rowed to the spot; but, as he had 
some distance to go, by the time he reached the birds they were very much 
exhausted and half-drowned, and were drifting helplessly with the tide. He got 
them into the boat and took them ashore, and, after being well dried and placed 
in warm boxes near a good fire, they all eventually recovered. The day was cold 
and frosty, and there was a slight fog on the water.” When wounded and dropped 
into the water pheasants swim with facility, and some instances are on record of 
their diving beneath the surface and rising at some distance. 
As the breeding season approaches, the crow of the male, resembling the 
