132 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



of Japan, makes the existence of the bird practically dependent upon the will of the 

 natives. It is in much the same case as the pheasants on the preserves of England, 

 except, of course, that the Japanese bird is indigenous. Although the farmers and 

 peasants do considerable trapping and poaching, this is carried on with extreme 

 caution, for the laws concerning the preserving of these birds are very strict. This was 

 the case even as far back as 1852, when Mr. Heine, the naturalist attached to 

 Commodore Perry's expedition, visited Japan. 



He writes: '*A few days after. Lieutenants Bent and Nicholson and myself made 

 another shooting excursion to the hills, but although we saw many pheasants, only 

 a single specimen was shot, and the birds appeared to be very shy. We observed 

 several Japanese with matchlocks about the hills, firing away at a great rate. As we 

 did not see any of them with game, and as the game-laws of Japan are very severe, 

 so much so, indeed, that their observance has been made a special article of the treaty 

 with the United States, I concluded that the firing was only for the purpose of driving 

 away the pheasants to places where they would be more secure from the strangers." 



The best place for studying these birds, as also the copper pheasants, I found to be 

 the training grounds of the troops, which were reservations of good size and apparently 

 Imperial Preserves, usually free from peasants and cultivation, and where the birds were 

 easily approached. This was owing to their having become accustomed to the noise of 

 the presence of human beings through the din and uproar of sham battles and other 

 military tactics. These are also included among the Imperial Preserves. Thanks to 

 permits obtained from the Imperial Hunting Bureau of the Imperial Household 

 Department I observed pheasants in the preserves of Narashinohara in Chiba Pre- 

 fecture ; of Renkojimura in Tokio and of Iwase in Fukushima Prefecture. 



Even more than the copper pheasants, however, the Green Japanese Pheasants 

 seem to prefer the vicinity of human cultivated fields, and when the farmers suffer, as 

 they frequently do, from the inroads of pheasants in their vegetable gardens, it is almost 

 always the latter species which is to blame. I heard of several instances where wild 

 birds came regularly to feed with fowls and nested close by. 



In such a locality I found myself one spring morning after a warm downpour, 

 when for thirty minutes I watched three hens scratching in a corner of a muddy 

 rice-field. Their feet, legs and under plumage were splashed and coated with the 

 wet clay, but they were unearthing a feast of grubs which was well worth a few 

 bedraggled feathers. While absorbed in these birds, my attention was drawn to a 

 distant pine tree, from the top of which a white-eye was singing — one of the few real 

 bird-songs which I heard at this season in Japan. A moment after I fixed my glasses 

 on the singer it stopped abruptly and flew down, and its place was immediately taken 

 by a cock Green Pheasant. After balancing itself for a moment on the top of this four- 

 foot pine tree, it raised its beak, uttered the strident double challenge of its kind, and 

 with the effort, overbalanced and fluttered to the ground. Later I saw what was 

 probably the same bird calling from a more secure perch on the summit of a low 

 treeless ridge higher up the slope. 



In the course of many walks throughout the Green Pheasant country I came twice 

 upon worn patches which were evidently winter sleeping-places of a covey of these 

 birds. Much down and a few contour feathers were scattered about, and the roundness 



