THE COMMON PHEASANT. 91 
brown; under the tail variegated with reddish. The lower surface of the wing is 
yellowish-grey. 
“ Length to end of tail 34 inches; extent of wings 32; wing from flexure 10; tail 
181; bill along the back 1545, along the edge of upper mandible 1;%;; tarsus 37’5; first 
toe ;4, its claw 33;; second toe 144, its claw 78;; third toe 24, its claw 78;; fourth toe 
1,8, its claw 42 twelfths. 
“Of three other individuals, the length 34, 35, 36 inches. 
_  Female.—The female is similar in form to the male, but with the tail much 
shorter. The bill and feet require no particular description. The anterior scutella of 
the tarsus are about seventeen in each row; the first toe has five, the second fifteen, 
the third twenty-two, the fourth eighteen. As in the male, there is a bare space 
under the eye, but scarcely papillar, and more feathered. The feathers of the upper 
part of the head are somewhat elongated; those of the rest of the head short; 
of the neck and body pBne and rounded; of the rump not elongated as in the 
male. 
«The general colour of the upper parts is greyish-yellow, variegated with black 
and yellowish-brown; the top of the head and the hind-neck tinged with red. The 
wing-coverts are lighter; the quills pale greyish-brown, mottled with greyish-yellow, 
as in the male. The tail is yellowish-grey, minutely mottled with black, and having 
in place of transverse bars, oblique irregular spots of black, centred with a pale 
yellow line. The lower parts are lighter and less mottled, the throat whitish, and 
without spots. The bill is horn-colour, tinged with green; the tarsi wood-brown, 
the toes darker, the claws of the same tint. 
* Length 26 inches; extent of wings 30; wing from flexure 97; tail 114;° bill 
along the back 13; tarsus 2}; first toe 4, its claw 74; second toe 1,5, its claw 3 
third toe 149, its claw 74; fourth toe 1,4, its claw 75. 
Several well marked and perfectly permanent varieties of this species are 
not uncommon. One of the best known is the so-called Bohemian pheasant, in 
which the entire plumage is much less glossy, the general ground colour being of a 
creamy tint; the head, neck, and spanglings on the breast and tail showing the 
dark markings in varying degrees of intensity in different specimens. The appearance 
of this variety is admirably given in the engraving, which renders any more 
detailed description unnecessary. The Bohemian pheasant is, as it were, accidentally 
produced from the common form in different localities, and the variation, like many 
others, is hereditary, and may be therefore propagated by careful selection of brood 
stock. Thus Mr. ‘Stevenson, in his “Birds of Norfolk,” informs us that in that 
county, like certain light varieties of the common partridge, they are confined to 
particular localities:—%<'They have been found in different seasons in some coverts 
at Cranmer; and in the autumn of 1861, I saw three fine examples killed, I believe, 
in Mrs. Hardcastle’s preserves at Hanworth near Cromer, one of which, even in its 
nN 2 
