i64 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



My glasses show even her beady eyes, and well concealed and distant as I am, 

 I know she has spied me out and her glance never for a moment wavers. I am 

 delighted to recognize her as a Soemmerring hen, not the more abundant green 

 pheasant. Once I hear her mate call, but only once, and though I wait long he 

 does not appear. 



Soon the air is filled with strange sounds. The distant booming of guns, the shrill 

 blast of a bugle, a sudden united chorus of yells, and then, through an opening vista, 

 I catch the glint of steel from sword or bayonets. Then a troop of cavalry dashes past, 

 unseen but with loud thud of hoofs, and I realize that we, the sitting pheasant 

 and myself, are in the centre of a sham battle. For a half-hour the hubbub continues, 

 and then the seat of war shifts and we are left again in peace. 



Finally I take my leave, quietly, without further intrusion, and slip away as dusk 

 is closing down. The following day I return and photograph the nest, and watch until 

 the bird returns again to her home. Nothing of tragedy came to this pheasant while I 

 remained in this region. Isolated from the world by armed men, she was perfectly safe, 

 for their guns were made for bigger game than her slim body. Her chicks may even 

 now be calling from the wonderful valleys which stretch far up the sides of the sacred 

 mountain of Fuji. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



Honda may be said to be the centre of distribution of this form, extending from 

 well up on the slopes of even the highest mountains to the very sea coast. It is, 

 however, as we shall see, not nearly as common on the low-lying coastal areas as among 

 the hilly central regions, being replaced in the former zone by the green pheasant 

 (Phasianus versicolor). In Kiusiu it occurs in the north-west, and eastward to the 

 central part of the island. To the south-east it merges into soemmerringi, and in the 

 south-west into ijimae. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



The Scintillating Copper Pheasant, although the most widely distributed of all its 

 forms, yet shows a decided preference for certain types of country. Its range coincides 

 closely with that of the green pheasant, but when it comes to particular localities the two 

 species more often divide the country between them than share it. The latter haunts 

 the vicinity of cultivation, and depends for much of its food upon the grain and other 

 crops of the Japanese farmer. The Copper Pheasants, on the contrary, keep away as 

 much as possible from all signs of human habitation, and although this is not wholly 

 possible in these small, densely populated islands, yet the general statement holds 

 true. 



Especially in the warmer months these birds keep to the hilly and mountainous 

 districts, especially where there is an abundance of well-grown forest with thick under- 

 growth of low bamboos and other vegetation. Wherever, in Honda, densely wooded 

 rough hillsides are found with valleys watered by a running stream, we may be fairly 

 certain of finding Copper Pheasants. 



Unlike their relation ijimae in Kiusiu, these northern birds never descend to 

 cultivated fields while the weather permits them to remain at higher altitudes, and I have 



