SCINTILLATING COPPER PHEASANT 167 



the hen takes them some distance from the nest, and I learned in one instance at least 

 that even if the last egg was chipped at noon, that very night the brood would be 

 hovered more than twenty yards away. In this case the last-hatched weakling was left 

 to his fate. This habit of leaving the vicinity of the nest as soon as possible is a wide- 

 spread one among gallinaceous birds. It may, perhaps, best be explained by the added 

 danger which would result from the odour of blood and egg liquids. A passing fox or 

 other animal would nose out such a tell-tale scent from a distance of many yards, where 

 the day before he might have passed close to the sitting hen and her unhatched eggs 

 without detecting a particle of odour. 



The young birds grow rapidly, and by November most of them are hardly 

 distinguishable from their parents. Apparently only a single brood is reared, although 

 from the fact that occasionally birds of younger growth are shot in the autumn, a second 

 laying probably takes place when the first is accidentally destroyed. The male bird has 

 been seen associating day after day with a single hen and her brood, evidence of some 

 weight in favour of monogamy. The hen and her brood roost together throughout the 

 autumn and winter. 



RELATION TO MAN 



Pheasants in Japan do not suffer to such an extent from systematic trapping as in 

 many other countries, and Copper Pheasants are even more immune than the green 

 pheasants, owing to their haunts being more inaccessible and farther removed from the 

 vicinity of villages and hamlets. Yamadori seem never to have been so numerous as 

 the latter, owing perhaps to the same factor of lack of adaptation to the advance of 

 mankind. 



Yamadori are protected by law, as they can legally be killed only from the ist of 

 November to the last day of February. But the law can hardly be said to be enforced. 

 Poaching is very widespread, and the police are almost helpless to cope with infringe- 

 ments of this law. One of the greatest defects of the Japanese game laws is the one 

 which prohibits private preserves. The Emperor alone is allowed to possess estates 

 on which public shooting is forbidden. Thus in the open season licensed gunners in 

 great numbers wander over all the more accessible of the pheasants' haunts. The 

 Copper Pheasants are driven down from the mountains by the snow in January and 

 February, and thus many scores fall to the guns which otherwise would escape with 

 safety at the higher elevations. 



The same remarks apply to the killing of pheasants for millinery purposes, the 

 Copper Pheasants suffering to a less extent only because of their fewer numbers and 

 greater isolation. This, much more than killing for the market, is causing the thinning 

 out of the birds. Many so-called Japanese sportsmen, I am told, are really pot-hunters, 

 and with the use of the best make of guns and well-trained dogs, they reap a rich annual 

 harvest. Such a hunter will shoot a cock pheasant, eat the flesh or sell it for twenty 

 sen (ten cents, or fivepence), and sell the skin to a feather dealer for half a yen (twenty- 

 five cents, or a shilling). 



CAPTIVITY 

 The captivity records of soemmerringi and scintillans are so inextricably mixed that 

 there is no use in attempting to separate them. It is a most mortifying commentary on 



