112 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE COVERT. 
dry and sandy, which seems to suit them very well.) Two years ago I penned up 
fifty very fine young birds, about half-grown; but they swelled very much about 
the head, and went completely blind, and about twenty of them died, but those that 
we have turned out seem to be in very good health and condition. As regards 
hybridizing, I know they will do so, as three years ago a hen Reeves escaped from 
the pens, bred with a common pheasant, and brought up five very fine young birds, 
much larger than the common pheasant, and of beautiful plumage. This was the 
only hen that had been at liberty until this year, when several more were turned 
out after the breeding season, so we shall be better able to judge of their habits, 
&c., next year. Their flight is very rapid—much faster than the common pheasant.” 
In reply to my inquiries during the present year, Mr. Mayes writes as 
follows :—“ Regarding the Reeves pheasants, I do not consider them so fertile as 
the common English or ring-necked pheasants; they do not lay so many eggs— 
~ generally eight to ten in a nest—whereas the common pheasants lay from fourteen 
to eighteen in a nest. They have crossed with the common pheasants here on a few 
occasions in the coverts; when they have done so they produce remarkably fine 
birds, both as regards size and plumage. They are a very shy bird, and require for 
laying, to do any good, to be penned up in a quiet place by themselves; but I 
have never penned any Reeves’s pheasants up with the common pheasants with a. 
view to cross them. Their value for showing sport lies mostly in their being good 
risers, and their being stronger on the wing and flying higher than the common 
pheasant. If a like quantity of Reeves’s and common pheasants were in two coverts, 
the Reeves’s pheasants would show decidedly better and finer sport, as they are 
much nobler birds.” . 
Many specimens of hybrid or cross-bred Reeves have been reared in confine- 
ment. That figured in the same plate with the Bohemian Pheasant was the offspring 
of a male Reeves with a Bohemian hen; it partook, as may be noticed, the characters 
of both species, the tail being of intermediate length, the white cowl, cheek patch, 
and neck ring of the Reeves being retained, but the splendid golden yellow of the 
body being almost entirely wanting. 
Hybrids have been produced between a male Reeves’s pheasant and female 
Cheer (Phasianus wallichii), but they have little beyond their size to recommend 
them. In appearance they look like dirty faded Reeves’s, with comparatively short 
tails. They are of large size, like the parent species, and would in all probability 
partake of those terrestrial habits of the Cheer which preclude its being advantageously 
introduced as a game bird, as it often refuses to rise, even when hunted or pursued 
with dogs. 
