240 PHEASANTS 



tection of an aviary in our climate ^ ; but in fact they 

 may be naturalised in British woodland as easily as 

 the common ring-necked and Colchic species. Most 

 delightful objects they are in a landscape, especially 

 about the garden, the cock bird having , but one 

 fault — inveterate self-consciousness. He seems to 

 be as painfully aware of being over-dressed as one 

 might feel if overtaken by daylight in walking back 

 from a fancy-dress ball. His one impulse seems to be 

 to run away and get hidden out of sight. Except in 

 spring. Then you may study him to your heart's 

 content, as I did one evening lately, strutting about on 

 a sunlit lawn, surrounded by his dusky harem in mute 

 admiration of his glittering raiment. 



And what raiment it is ! on a par with the kingfisher's, 

 Nature's freak of illumination, just to show dwellers in 

 the temperate zone what she can do when she lets 

 herself go in the tropics. A flame-coloured crest, an 

 erectile orange ruff barred with sable, a bottle-green 

 jacket turned up with yellow and scarlet, a crimson vest, 

 and a long, arching chocolate tail — such is the everyday 

 wear of a private gentleman in Thaumalean society. 

 Who so dull as not to covet such a gay denizen of his 

 shrubbery? Anybody who chooses may have it. 

 Some twenty years ago the President of the Zoological 

 Society turned down a lot of exotic creatures on a 

 shooting which he rents in the south-west of Scotland — 

 among others, some golden pheasants. These, breeding 



' So recent an authority as the late Professor Newton described 

 them in his admirable Dictionary of Birds as ' only fitted for the 

 aviary.' 



