500 PHEASANT. 
menced, which has left almost indelible marks, especially with regard 
to the characteristic white collar. Fertile hybrids have also been 
produced with the beautiful green-tinted Japanese P. versicolor, and 
the splendid long-tailed Chinese P. veev'es?; the so-called “Bohemian 
Pheasant” being merely a pale buff-coloured variety. 
The Pheasant owes its generic and specific names to its tradi- 
tional introduction from the banks of the Colchian Phasis—the 
modern Rion—which enters the Black Sea near Poti; and there 
the pure breed is still to be found. Westward, it inhabits portions 
of Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, Albania and Roumelia, but it may 
be doubted whether it is indigenous to the northward of the 
Balkans, though it is found wild in Corsica. Under greater or less 
protection it is met with in nearly every country of Europe, up to 
the southern districts of Sweden and Norway. Eastward, its range 
extends along the southern shores of the Caspian about as far as 
Astrabad, beyond which a desert cuts it off from the various species 
which inhabit Afghanistan, Turkestan, Mongolia, and China. 
The short crow of the males may be heard in March, when fight- 
ing takes place for the possession of the hens, which, as a rule, 
begin to lay in April. From 10-14 eggs, measuring about 1°85 by 
1°45 in., of an olive-brown or sometimes a pale blue colour, are 
deposited in a slight nest on the ground; but exceptionally squirrels’ 
dreys and former habitations of other birds in trees are selected. 
Incubation lasts 23 days. Several hens will sometimes sit amicably 
on the same nest, as they will do with Partridges and domestic 
fowls; while in a few instances cock-birds have been seen “incu- 
bating as well as rearing the brood. The natural food consists of 
grain, berries, acorns and other vegetable matter, snails, and an 
enormous number of wire-worms and injurious insects; ants and 
their larvae forming the chief sustenance of the young. Water and 
cover are indispensable, though trees are not absolutely essential, 
for Pheasants do not constantly roost in them during the summer. 
When well on the wing their pace is tremendous, and they have 
been seen to fly nearly four miles at a stretch; they also swim with 
considerable facility. Hybrids have been produced with Black 
Grouse and several other species of gallinaceous birds. A partial 
assumption of the male plumage by females which are old or have 
ceased to breed is not uncommon. 
Space does not allow of a description of the Pheasant, now 
seldom—if ever—found pure-bred in this country. The average 
weight of an old cock-bird is from 3-33 lbs., and of a hen about 
23 Ibs. 
