20 PHEASANTS FOB COVEBTS AND AVIABIES. 



On tlie other hand, examples of nests deferred until very- 

 late in the year are not unknown. Mr. W. W. Blest, of 

 Biddenden, near Staplehurst, writes: "Whilst partridge 

 shooting on September 3rd, 1874, we disturbed a sitting 

 pheasant, the nest containing twelve eggs. We often hear 

 of the early nesting of game birds, but rarely so late in 

 tbe season." In October, 1869, Mr. Walter E. Tyrell, of 

 Plashwood, near Stowmarket, forwarded to me a young 

 pheasant, with the following letter : " When pheasant 

 shooting with some friends yesterday, the 15th inst., in this 

 neighbourhood, one of the beaters picked up dead, in a path 

 in the wood we were in, a very young chick pheasant ; it could 

 not have been hatched more than a week. My keeper tells 

 me he has found them (but very rarely) as young in 

 September. I forward the young chick to you, in order 

 that you may inspect it." I carefully examined the young 

 bird, which was not more than two or three days old. On 

 October 20, 1900, Mr. A. Dannege, of Colchester, forwarded 

 to me a pheasant chick, one of a brood in a hedgerow, not 

 near to any covert. These late-hatched birds were in all 

 probability the produce of a second laying during the 

 season. 



The artificial state in which these birds exist, as supplied 

 with nutritive food and protected in our coverts and preserves, 

 leads to other departures from their natural conditions. Thus 

 variations of plumage and size are much more frequent and 

 more marked than would occur in the case of birds in a 

 perfectly wild state. In some instances the size is very 

 greatly increased. Hen pheasants usually weigh from two 

 pounds to two pounds and a quarter, whilst the usual weight 

 of cock pheasants is from about three pounds to three pounds 

 and a half. Yarrell, in his "History of British Birds," 

 mentions two unusually large; he says "The lighter bird 

 of the two just turned the scale against four and a half 

 pounds j the other took the scale down at once. The 

 weights were accurately ascertained, in the presence of several 



