14 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The food may be varied. Insect food is very desirable, and if ants' eggs or fresh 

 maggots are obtainable the chicks will thrive and grow with great rapidity. In addition, 

 chopped green food, such as young lettuce leaves, should be provided, and milk and egg 

 custard, while potatoes, corn meal mush, chopped cheese, and bruised hemp and canary 

 seed are all suitable and will be eaten and digested. When the birds get older they may 

 be weaned to the adult pheasant grain food, such as hemp, wheat and barley. 



It is much better to confine the pheasants in a covered aviary, but if this is not 

 possible the wings of the birds should be pinioned, and it is much better to do this when 

 they are quite young, not over a month old. The main blood-vessels should be tied 

 with thread above the first joint — the wrist — and the lower part of the wing (above the first 

 joint, however) taken off with a single snip of the scissors. There will be no loss of blood, 

 and whatever discomfort is felt at first soon passes away, and there is no need ever 

 afterwards to catch the bird and clip its wing-feathers. 



Until they become used to flapping upward to their roosting-place with what remains 

 of their flight feathers, it is better to provide a rough ladder leading to the lower limbs 

 of the trees. I have already spoken of the impossibility of keeping more than a single 

 cock confined, at least during the breeding season, with hens. From one to five hens 

 may be placed with a cock, but the fewer the number of the former the better. As with 

 all birds, readjustments may be necessary, for not infrequently a cock Golden will take 

 an inexplicable dislike to one or more of the hens. The hen should be removed at once 

 and replaced by another, for such unfriendliness is never made up, but always results 

 eventually in the death of the female bird. 



As to suggestions about protecting the birds from cats and other enemies, this can 

 best be left to the specific case under consideration. In some places the birds are safe in 

 an open aviary with a twelve-foot wire fence, made cat-proof by an outwardly bent 

 entanglement of barbed wire at the top. Elsewhere the entire aviary must be closed in, 

 and in such a case it will be found much better to provide a thick cloth to hang down 

 over the open, wired side, to prevent the birds taking fright at passing cats and dashing 

 themselves against the roof. 



An interesting fact in regard to these pheasants is given in the following paragraph 

 written in England. "Golden Pheasants will endure every severity of our climate. 

 Some years since I gave away some eggs, from which birds were hatched and turned 

 loose in a large plantation ; they bred freely the ensuing year, and well stocked the 

 preserve ; the year following some withdrew to a covert at some considerable distance, 

 driving away the common pheasants and taking possession of the whole. Some Golden 

 Pheasants' eggs, which I forwarded as a present to a friend whose preserves are among 

 the largest in the kingdom, were hatched very early last season and turned loose ; these 

 bore all the rigours of winter as well as any others, but in the spring began to show a 

 decided aversion to their fellows of more sombre hue." The fact that the much heavier 

 and larger common pheasants were actually driven away, shows the pugnacity of the 

 Goldens, their activity being probably their biggest asset in encounters of this kind. 

 The two species will occasionally cross, however, the hybrids being very large and of 

 unusual colouring. 



Golden Pheasants are fairly good livers, but will do much better in good-sized 

 private aviaries than in the cramped grassless quarters in which they are usually 



