COREAN PHEASANT 117 



When trying to get away from the hunter, they will always fly and not sail until some 

 distance away. Invariably just before alighting they sail for several yards on set wings. 

 They seem to fly fast, but in reality they do not. I could usually get them when within 

 forty yards by aiming six inches ahead of the bird. 



" The only noise other than vocal which I heard was the rapid whirr of their wings 

 when rising. 



" I believe that the pheasants really depend more on their eyes than on their ears 

 for protection from enemies. I have repeatedly been walking across rice paddys with a 

 man beside me talking loudly, and almost stepped on pheasants which were drinking 

 under the edge of a terrace in my path ; they could, undoubtedly, have heard me coming 

 forty or fifty yards away, if they had been relying on their hearing. One time I broke 

 suddenly through some thick underbrush, making considerable noise, and when I 

 emerged I saw a pheasant feeding almost facing me not more than twenty yards away. 

 The bird did not raise his head until I walked five or ten yards in its direction, when 

 it suddenly straightened, saw me, and took to flight. I could cite numerous other 

 instances which lead me to believe that the birds rely almost entirely on their eyes 

 rather than their hearing. 



" It is difficult to say what the effects of civilization have been on the pheasants in 

 Corea. Since 1909 all guns have been confiscated from the Coreans themselves, and 

 consequently they are not able to kill pheasants ; but they trap and snare a considerable 

 number. The foreigners in the various towns do a great deal of shooting, and annually 

 kill thousands of pheasants. They are, however, still ver^ plentiful, and I could not 

 find that the foreigners believed that they were decreasing greatly in numbers. At 

 Ulsan, which, by the way, was not an especially good locality for pheasants, I could 

 always put up ten or fifteen birds in an hour's walk. In other sections I heard of forty 

 or fifty pheasants being killed in a day with no difficulty whatever. The birds have 

 evidently adapted themselves to deforestation, since the south and central parts of Corea 

 for several hundred years have been absolutely denuded of trees. The pheasants were 

 never found in the trees, wherever there were any, except at night. The greatest amount 

 of shooting is done from September to April, but there is no legal protection at any 

 time during the year. 



''Once only did I put a pheasant out of a tree; this when it was quite dark and 

 the bird undoubtedly asleep. It was a cock pheasant and alone. I have, however, 

 flushed pheasants from the ground in the thick cover where they were undoubtedly 

 sleeping. I should say that more frequently they roost on the ground than in trees. 



''The birds always fed on the ground. In the early morning, from daylight until 

 about an hour after sunrise, and in the afternoon, from 3.30 until sundown and a short 

 time afterward, the pheasants were always to be found in the open rice paddys feeding 

 and drinking ; they would never feed where there was no water. They made no attempt 

 at concealment at these times, but seemed to trust to their eyes to give them warning- 

 of danger. Usually, when any one passed by, the birds would flush a hundred yards 

 or more away and fly up the hillsides to cover. If they had been fired upon they would 

 frequently go into the trees on the top of the hill, but this was variable. Without 

 exception, as soon as they alighted, they would begin to run and usually rise several 

 hundred yards or more away when next flushed. When hunted, after having once been 



