160 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



trunk calling out to his mother far above, while she was anxiously 

 replying. The narrator of this interesting story goes on to state that 

 he proceeded to relieve the other captives and bring them down to 

 safety, the old bird, not having the wit to appreciate his intentions, 

 constantly darting at and pecking him. Finally she chased him out 

 of the wood, he declared, and went back to her young. That eminent 

 authority the late Lord Lilford also published a story of a hen 

 Pheasant who took possession of a Wood-Pigeon's nest, and laid nine 

 eggs in it. Three of the chicks in this case were found dead at the 

 foot of the tree, having broken their poor little necks or otherwise 

 done for themselves in the fall, but the other half-dozen, it was 

 believed, came off all right. 



" What has been said about the different habits and dispositions of 

 different birds is proved by another story of a cock Pheasant who sat 

 on nine eggs and duly hatched them out. The cock Pheasant, as a 

 rule, is not in the least commendable in the characters of husband 

 and father. He is a very vain person, very haughty, and very greedy ; 

 struts about, does himself well, seeks admiration, and declines to be 

 bothered in any way with family responsibilities. This one, who 

 played at being a hen, was, of course, altogether an exception. In- 

 deed, the hen Pheasant is not a model mother as the hen Partridge 

 is ; the hen Pheasant will often desert her nest if she finds anything 

 to amuse her elsewhere, and is so deficient in maternal instinct that 

 she will sometimes leave her unfortunate chicks to take care of them- 

 selves. In the valleys of the Caucasus ' unsociable as a Pheasant ' 

 is a familiar saying. There is no affability about our brilliant friend. 

 I do not know anything more quaint and interesting about Pheasants 

 than the fact that the hen will sometimes assume the plumage of the 

 cock. How she manages to do it no one has been able to explain ; 

 nor, indeed, can one guess at the motives which induce so strange a 

 transformation, but that there are hens who do this any amount of 

 evidence unquestionably proves. For the matter of that, hen 

 Pheasants are not the only hens of like proclivities. Another funny 

 thing about Pheasants is the way in which they used to be some- 

 times caught in days of yore — very much yore, for the writer who 

 first described the method, so far as is known, was the foster-brother 

 of no less a personage than Eichard Coeur de Lion. The w^ould-be 

 capturers — that is a clumsy expression, but one hardly knows whether 

 to call them sportsmen or poachers — used to make a dummy cock 

 Pheasant, coloured as nearly like the real bird as the paints of the 

 period and such artistic skill as they happened to possess allowed. 

 Having ascertained that there were Pheasants in the neighbourhood, 

 the fowlers put out their dummy and took cover. Presently the cock 

 Pheasant would see his supposed rival. The spirit of combat would 

 take possession of him. He would advance to attack the intruder, 

 as he supposed him to be, and while thus engaged would give the 

 fowlers the opportunity of taking him in a net. I must not, how- 

 ever, occupy too much space with disquisitions on this pride of the 

 woods." 



