44 PHEASANTS FOR rOVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



apparently the princijml produce, and forming, witli tlie 

 berries of tlie privet (whieli abounds tlirongliout Albania) the 

 chief food of the ]n-esent species. We heard many more 

 ])heasants than we saw, as the woods were thick and of great 

 extent, (lur dogs wild, and we lost a great deal of time in 

 making circuits to ci'oss or avoid the numerous small but 

 deep sti-eams which intersect the country in every direction, 

 'khis species is particularly abundant on the shores of the 

 Gulf of iSalonica, about the mouth of the river Vardar ; and 

 I have been informed, on gtiod authority, that pheasants are 

 also to be ftmud in the woods of \dirak()ri, in /Etolia, ahjout 

 midway Ijetween the gulfs of Lepauto and ^Vrta." With 

 regard to the ])resciit distribution of the species, ]\Ir. (iould, 

 in his " Birds of Asia," states that the late Mr. Lt. T. A'igne 

 shot it in a wild state at the Ijake of Apollonia, thirty-tive miles 

 Ircim I'riiussa, to the south of the sea of jMarmora, and that 

 the late j\Ir. Atkinson frjund it on the Kezzil-a-Gateh and the 

 country to the west of the river Ilia. ]\Ir. C. G. Danf(jrd, m 

 his n(.it(.'s on the ornithology of Asia Minor, writes: "The 

 JKnglish Consul, Mr. Gilbertson, informed us that piheasants, 

 though generally becoming scarce, were still common near Lake 

 Apollonia, where a couple of guns had last year killed over 

 sixt_y head in two or three days' shooting'. '^ {Ihif<, 1880. 

 p. 1)8.) 



Lord Lilford, \\riting in 1895, states : "The only Cfnintry 

 in which we have ])ersoiia]ly met with it in an impri'sorved 

 and jierfectly ^vild state is on the shores of the Adriatic, near 

 Alessio, in Albaiiia, where it is, or was, Ijy no means nnc(.imnion 

 ill the low-lying foi'est country near the mouth of the river 

 Ih'in; it is also to be icjiind in c(insiderable numbers near 

 Salonica and in certain otlu'r localities in European 'I'urkew 

 I'mt the best authorities seem to agree that the true home and 

 headqmirters of the s])ecics are the shores of the Caspian, the 

 valleys ot the (Caucasus, and Northern Asia iliiior. A^crv 

 closoly allied forms, however, are to bo met with from the 

 Caspian, through Asia, to the shores and islands of China." 



