GREEN JAPANESE PHEASANT 135 



DAILY ROUND OF LIFE 



The food of the Green Pheasants varies with the locality, but under the usual 

 conditions of life will consist of grains of various kinds, such as rice, barley and wheat, 

 and of berries. To a less extent there may be found shoots of herbs and bamboo, bits 

 of sweet potatoe and various vegetables in its crop, while insects, such as grubs, crickets 

 and small beetles, form a still smaller percentage of its food. 



The birds begin to mate in March, and the breeding season extends through April 

 and May. The moulting season occurs in the autumn, the plumage of birds shot in 

 September and October often showing extreme abrasion of the feathers. I saw no fights 

 between cock birds, but Japanese hunters told me that the pheasants may have such 

 fierce encounters that one of the combatants succumbs. The courtship, as I have 

 observed it in captive birds, differs in no way from that of the common pheasant. 



The birds are essentially polygamous, although the exigencies of love and war may 

 often result in allotting but a single female to a cock. The nests are placed on the 

 ground and without special lining, except for dried leaves and other debris which may 

 have been in the depression when first occupied by the hen. I found nests with full 

 sets of eggs varying from six to twelve, and fifteen are said to be sometimes laid by a 

 single hen. Prof. Ijima tells me that in the latter number, those deposited last are 

 often smaller in size and infertile. There is considerable variation in the eggs of the 

 Green Pheasant, the range of pigment extending from pale stone-colour to quite a dark 

 brown. The size shows less extremes, the measurements being from 1*5 to i"8 mm. in 

 length and from 12 to i'4 in breadth, the general average being i'6 by 1*3 mm. 



A single brood is reared in a season, and the reports I received of second and even 

 third broods are based on later layings, incident on the destruction of the first nest or 

 set of eggs. When this is destroyed by flood or other cause, the hen will at once make 

 another nest. In this case the number of eggs will be fewer, from four to eight. 

 Seldom are ten chicks seen with a single hen. Four or five seem to be the more 

 common number which survive the dangers of early chickhood. And these dangers are 

 far from few. The hawks, kites, crows, magpies, weasels and snakes all take their 

 share, but their greatest enemy is, undoubtedly, the half-wild domestic cats which 

 abound in some places. Although the skins, both dried and of freshly killed birds, are 

 comparatively free from Mallophaga, yet the living pheasants seem to suffer from their 

 attacks, or else they take an unusual pleasure in the delights of dust-baths. Wherever 

 Kiji are found, one will frequently run across the characteristic basin-like depressions 

 which mark the dust-baths of these birds. Some especially delectable place will 

 apparently be used by many individuals in succession, the basin becoming deep and 

 wide, and so filled with light dust that when a bird lies down and flicks the powder 

 into its plumage, the dust rises in clouds. Once I thought I must be approaching a 

 small hot spring giving forth masses of steam, and only when I reached the place did I 

 realize that a few seconds before, pheasants had been using the dust of the place. 

 During my approach they had crept quietly away, and no searching of the surrounding 

 brush revealed a single bird. There were only a few tell-tale feathers, numerous 

 tracks, and the earth still warm and the dust still blowing upward, to tell of their 

 recent occupance. In Yamadori country such dusting-places are never found. 



Although polygamous by nature, the cock pheasant in autumn is often seen with 



