96 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE COVERT. 
most marked feature of all, the white ring on the neck, descends from one generation: 
to another, and the hybrid origin of the bird is thus apparent long after every other 
trace of its mixed parentage has entirely passed away.” 
The Chinese pheasant has been introduced into several parts of the globe with 
success. The rapidity of its increase in New Zealand has already been noticed. As 
long since as the year 1513 it was acclimatised in the island of St. Helena under 
very peculiar circumstances, as related by Brookes in his history of the island. 
Fernandez Lopez, having deserted from the army of A. Albuquerque at Goa, was 
exiled, along with a number of negroes, and banished to St. Helena, being supplied 
with roots, seeds, poultry, and pheasants for turning out. These were of the species 
now under consideration. Berries and seeds being abundant in the island, the birds 
became wild, throve amazingly, and on the visit of Capt. Cavendish in 1588 he 
found them in great abundance and admirable condition. In 1875 we are informed, 
in Melliss’s “St. Helena,” “ that they still exist abundantly, and quite maintain the 
characteristics mentioned by Cavendish. They are protected by game laws, which 
permit them to be killed, on payment of the licences, for six weeks in the summer 
or autumn of each year, and hundreds of them are generally killed during one 
shooting season. They find plenty of covert, and generally make their nests in the 
long tufty fields of cow-grass (Paspalum serobiculatwm).” Myx. Elliot informs us 
that the present representatives differ somewhat from their ancestors in the coloured 
markings of the plumage, a result doubtless owing to the influence of a change of 
climate acting through many generations. Possibly one influence may be due to 
- the change of diet. We are informed by Mr. J. English Torbett that the ripe seeds 
of the Caila ethiopica, so common as a greenhouse plant in this country, are much 
sought after by the pheasants in St. Helena, and that it forms a large portion of 
their food. 
The characters of this species were given in minute detail by the late 
Mr. Gould, in his magnificent folio, “The Birds of Asia”; they are as follows :— 
«The male has the forehead deep green; crown of the head fawn colour, glossed 
with green; over each eye a conspicuous streak of buffy white; the naked papillated 
skin of the orbits and sides of the face deep scarlet or blood red, interspersed 
beneath the eye with a series of very minute black feathers; horn-like tufts on each 
side of the head; throat and neck rich deep, shining green, with violet reflections; 
near the base of the neck a conspicuous collar of shining white feathers, narrow 
before and behind, and broadly dilated at the sides; the feathers of the back of the 
neck black, with a narrow mark of white down the centre of the back portion, and 
a large lengthened mark of ochreous yellow within the edge of each web near the 
tip; the feathers of back and scapularies black at the base, with a streak of white 
in the middle, then buff surrounded with a distinct narrow band of black, to which 
succeeds an outer fringe of chesnut; feathers of the back black, with numerous 
