EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 159 



themselves about the habits of birds and beasts, the explanation being 

 that the bipeds — the feathered ones, I mean — and the quadrupeds 

 often differ so much in their proceedings. As a rule, for instance, 

 the cock Pheasant is the lord of a harem with a number of attendant 

 wives ; but a great authority on this subject has stated that, though 

 sometimes several hens with their families put themselves under the 

 protection of one cock, there are other occasions when several cocks 

 act as cavaliers to one hen and her family. She gets horribly con- 

 ceited ; at least, that is what one would be inclined to suppose. The 

 recital of this fact only shows how careful we should be not to 

 contradict each other, and to make assertions that things do not 

 happen because we never chance to have seen them. Talking of the 

 cock Pheasant in April, there is an authenticated instance of Pheasant 

 chicks having been seen in Devon, eleven of them, as early as 

 April 18th. A man might live in the country a great many years, 

 become thoroughly well acquainted with the ways of the inhabitants 

 of the countryside, and never see a Pheasant chick until well on in 

 May. Indeed, the hen Pheasant generally begins to lay her eggs in 

 the month — about the middle — of April, and having laid them it 

 takes her about a month to introduce the fluffy contents to the 

 world. There is an authenticated record of a Pheasant who was 

 sitting on her nest, with twelve eggs in it, as late as Sept. 3rd, and 

 that is the sort of story one would hesitate to believe unless it came 

 from a very trustworthy quarter. 



" If you asked the average countryman whether Pheasants nested 

 in trees, having ascertained that you were not suggesting what is 

 called a catch, he would inform you that they never did anything of 

 the sort ; that they roosted in trees, but conducted all their little 

 family operations on the floor. This, again, would be wrong, and it 

 is certainly not everyone who knows the rights of this particular 

 case. Pheasants, it is quite true, do not build nests in trees ; but 

 one will occasionally lay eggs after having taken possession of the 

 nest of some other bird, like a gorgeous Cuckoo. Some years ago I 

 edited a book on the subject of the Pheasant, and that is how I 

 chance to have gathered in out-of-the-way bits of knowledge. One 

 of these bits was to the effect that in the year 1892 a credible witness 

 bore testimony to the discovery of a Pheasant's nest with eleven 

 eggs in it in a spruce fir fully twenty feet from the ground. The 

 first thing one naturally thinks of is what is likely to happen to the 

 chicks when they come into this troublous world ; because they do 

 not resemble the offspring of ordinary tree-building birds. The 

 discoverer of this nest went to rob it, with the most kindly and 

 benevolent intentions, his purpose being to put the eggs under a hen, 

 so that when the chicks came out they might walk about in the 

 ordinary course, instead of finding themselves in the air. The hen 

 Pheasant, however, tried to frighten him away by flapping her wings 

 and pecking at his hand. He left five of her eggs to console her, 

 putting the others under the poultry hen, when they were duly 

 hatched out ; and going to the tree to ascertain how the others were 

 getting on, he found a lately hatched Pheasant at the bottom of the 



