290



M. Pierre Amedee Pichot,



The Counci! request that all subscriptions for the coming year*

now due, be sent in not later than November ist. The subscriptions

should be sent direct to the Treasurer, Mr. A. Ezra, no, Mount

Street, London, W. i—not in any case to the Publishers. The old

rule is now abolished.


The Council and Editor do not receive any salary, and are

busy with their usual occupations. It will therefore much gratify

them and be a real appreciation of their labours if the subscriptions

are sent in promptly. To seize the magnificent opportunities at last

within our grasp early action is imperative.


The future is full of hope—nay, expectation—and crowded

with grand possibilities. On the threshold of a new volume the

Magazine doffs its eclipse plumage—



“ As those


Dull-coated things, that making slide apart

Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns

A jewell’d harness, ere they pass and fly.”


G. R.



THE EARED PHEASANT OF MANCHURIA


( Crossoptilon ).


By M. Pierre Amedee Pichot.


Most wild animals can readily he tamed, but very few have

become reliable domestic auxiliaries, so that one is led to believe

that if our actual domestic stock is derived from the wild fauna of

the globe, the gradual transformation must have begun in very

remote ages, when man was not diverted from the creatures he

reclaimed by social business and necessities. Adaptation to new

surroundings cannot be obtained without perseverance through many

generations, otherwise the experiments die out with the originators

of the scheme, and all the work has to be undertaken anew.


Thus it happens that many animals and birds, naturally

disposed to accept our control and to avail themselves of the benefits

of domestication, have retained their wild character and are still

totally unfit to realise our expectations.


The fact is particularly noticeable in the class of gallinaceous

birds, which seem better disposed than any to join the human com¬

munity and profit by civilisation. It is now several centuries since



