THE GOLDEN PHEASANT, 119 
and eat them the moment they are produced. The best remedy I know is to 
procure half a dozen artificial eggs, and let them lie about always, and then the 
birds, seeing them constantly, regard them less. These kinds of pheasants are 
raised in confinement much more easily than the common pheasant of our 
preserves, the young growing with incredible rapidity if well and frequently fed 
on custard, boiled eggs, good old cheese—all chopped fine—and mixed with bruised 
hemp and canary seed. The maggot produced in flesh from the blue fly will tend 
very greatly to their rapid improvement. I am perfectly aware that ants’ eggs are 
preferable, but when these are not available maggots will be found an excellent 
substitute, and should be given daily till the poults are somewhat grown. Wheat, 
hemp, and barley are the best food for the old stock. It is somewhat. singular 
that neither variety will agree comfortably with the common pheasants in a wood; 
notwithstanding I have seen the hybrids produced between both these kinds and 
the common pheasants. Both are very beautiful of their kind, the halfbred Golden 
being of a strikingly rich auburn, shading into every variety of gold colour; while 
“the pencillings” of the hybrid Silver are not equalled by any of the gorgeous 
plumage we see in bird-skins from foreign climes. I have had opportunities of 
seeing them constantly for some years, but will add that they were invariably 
unprolific and sought every possible opportunity to evince their pugnacity to all 
other birds confined with them. 
“Both Golden and Silver pheasants will endure every severity of owr climate. 
Some years since, I sent some eggs of the latter, from which birds were hatched 
and turned loose in a large plantation; they bred freely the ensuing year, and 
well stocked the preserve; the year following some withdrew to a covert at some 
considerable distance, driving away the common pheasant, taking possession of 
the whole. Many were purposely shot the next winter, but proved by no means a 
well-flavoured addition to the dinner-table. Some Golden pheasants’ eggs, which I 
forwarded as a present to a friend whose preserves are among the largest in the 
kingdom, “were hatched very early last season and turned loose; these bore all the 
rigours of winter as well as any others, but in the spring began to show a decided 
aversion to their fellows of more sombre hue. ‘The flesh of the Golden is far 
preferable to that of the Silver pheasant. The crest feathers and ‘the cowl’ (or 
neck feathers) are those so universally coveted by our fishermen, and are always 
saleable at high prices; for this reason a careful amateur will diligently look after 
them when shed by birds kept in an aviary.” 
Mr Hewitt further stated that the sexes in the chicks were easily distinguished, 
the eyes of the cocks being light, those of the hens deep hazel. 
Golden pheasants that have escaped to the coverts and been shot, are found 
when cooked to be of very delicate flavour, and are described as being very sapid 
and far preferable to the common species. These escaped birds will sometimes breed 
