CAUCASIAN PHEASANT 79 



pheasants and partridges secured by pot-hunters. These were sent northward to 

 Russia by railroad. As many as eighteen eggs are known to have been deposited by a 

 single wild hen pheasant, but in spite even of the usual large number laid, eight to 

 twelve, there is no doubt but that the bird will become extinct throughout this entire 

 region before many years have passed. 



Of all berries the so-called Oblepicha of the Russians, which are of such importance 

 in the native households, are the favourites of the pheasants. They also feed largely on 

 blackberries and the allied Rtibus fruticostts which grow in the jungle, but the chief 

 article of diet seems to be the green sprouts and soft tips of grasses. 



When suitable trees are available the pheasants roost high, the cock flying up first 

 and the female following, the trees with the thickest foliage, and preferably those growing 

 in a dense grove, being chosen. They are easily approached when roosting, but one's 

 face must be hidden as one approaches. These pheasants are both monogamous and 

 polygamous in a wild state, but the latter seems the more usual condition. Two or 

 three hens are frequently seen associated with a single cock pheasant, the same ratio as 

 obtains among the red-legged partridges. 



At the pairing time the cock is exceedingly stupid. He can be deceived by a 

 common barnyard hen, and can even be caught alive. The hunters of Lenkoran practice 

 the following method : at the mating season in early May a domestic hen is taken out 

 with the hunters, preferably to the edge of a woodland which contains challenging and 

 pairing pheasants. To prevent the poor hen from seeing or attempting to escape, her 

 eyelids are stitched together. She is then placed before a kind of blind, such as the 

 great trunk of some fallen tree or a dense shrub behind which the man conceals himself. 

 The frightened hen remains sitting until prodded with a stick, when she flaps her wings. 

 The nearest pheasant cock hears this sound and at once approaches, uttering from time 

 to time his sonorous di- or tri-syllabic crow. Again she is made to flutter, and soon the 

 wild cock appears from the neighbouring brush within easy range. The alarm caused 

 by the sound of the gun soon passes, and the experiment may be successfully 

 repeated a short distance away. When, in the spring, the natives desert the lowland 

 valleys for the elevated pastures of the mountains, the pheasants resort to the ash-heaps 

 to enjoy dust baths. At such places wheat is scattered about as an added inducement 

 in order to tempt them to come regularly and in numbers, and on a favourable 

 opportunity a wholesale slaughter may be made with a single discharge of shot. 



SYNONYMY 



The Pheasant Albin, Nat. Hist. Birds, I. 1738, p. 14, pis. 25, 26; Selby, Brit. Orn., I. 1833, pt II. pi. 57. 

 La Faisan Brisson, Orn. I. 1760, p. 262; D'Aubenton, PI. Ehl. pis. 121, 122; Buffon, Hist. Nat. Ois., II. 



1771, p. 328, pi. xi. 



Phasianus colchicus Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 1758, p. 158 [habitat] in Africa, Asia ; Linnaeus Systema 

 Naturae, 1766, I. p. 271 ; Gmelin, Nov. Comm. Ac. Petr., 1771, XV. p. 451 ; Gm. Sys. Nat., 1788, I. pt. II. p. 741 ; 

 Lath., Ind. Orn., II. 1790, p. 629; Bonnat, Tabl. Encycl. Meth., I. 1791, p. 183, pi. 87, fig. 4; Meyer and Wolf, 

 Tasch. der deutsch. Vog., I. 1810, p. 291, pi. ; Pall., Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat., II. 1811, p. 83; Temm., Pig. et Gall., 

 II. i8i3,>. 289 ; Temm., Pig. et Gall., III. 1815, p. 666; Temm., Man. d'Orn., 1815, p. 282 ; Vieill., N. Diet. d'Hist. 

 Nat, xi. 1817, p. 29; Steph., in Shaw's Gen. Zool, XI. 18 19, p. 222, pi. 13 (hybrid); Temm., Man. d'Orn., II. 

 1820, p. 453 ; Roux, Orn. Prov., 1825, p. 47. pls. 262, 263 ; Vieill, Faun, Franc., 1828, p. 247, pi. 107, figs, i and 2 ; 

 Werner, Atl. Ois. d'Eur., Ord. 10, 1828, pis. I. and II.; Cuvier, Reg. Anim., I. 1829, p. 477 ; Griff., ed. Guv., III. 

 1829, p. 22 ; Less., Traite d'Orn., 1831, p. 495 ; Montagu, Orn. Diet, ed. 2, 1831, p. 367; Men^r., Cat Rais., 1832, 

 p. 46 [Caucasus]; Selby, 111. Brit Orn., I. 1833, p. 417, pL LVII.; Naum., Nat Vog. Deutschl, VI. 1833, p. 432, 

 pi. 162 ; Schinz, Nat Abbild. Vog., 1833, p. 249, pi. 95 ; Macgill, Brit. Birds, I. 1837, p. 114; Gould, Birds Europe, 



