332 USEFUL BIRDS. 
PHEASANTS. 
Pheasants are closely related to the Pea Fowl and the 
Domestic Cock. They are natives of Asia, but several 
species have been introduced into England and America. 
Ring-necked Pheasant. 
Phasianus torquatus. 
Length.— Varying according to length of tail, but reaching three feet. 
Adult Male. — Head and neck dark, burnished blue, with reflections of other 
shades; a white ring around neck; back orange-brown to reddish, with 
plack and other variegations; breast coppery-chestnut, with purplish 
edgings and some greenish gloss; tail olive-brown, with red-purplish 
edgings, and crossed with blackish bars; bare skin of head scarlet. 
Adult Female. — Smaller; tail shorter, and general plumage brown, marked with 
blackish. 
Young. — Similar to female. 
Nest.— On ground. ‘ 
Eggs. — Similar to those of a small domestic fowl. 
Season. — Resident. 
The Ring-neck was first imported into Oregon from China, 
and was introduced into Massachusetts from the Pacific coast 
in 1894 by the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and 
Game, who have since propa- 
gated the birds and liberated 
them in various parts of the 
State. It was brought to 
this country under the name 
of Mongolian Pheasant, but 
is quite distinct from that 
species, to which it has only a general likeness. When its 
acclimatization here was proposed, I wrote the late John 
Fannin, then curator of the Provincial Museum of British 
Columbia, inquiring whether the Pheasants which had been 
introduced there had proved injurious to native birds or 
farm crops. He replied that on Vancouver Island, where 
Pheasants were then numerous, they had driven the Grouse 
to the woods; but that this did little harm, as Grouse were 
naturally wood birds, while the Pheasants were birds of the 
open country. They were doing some damage to crops, 
but this had not caused any cry for their abatement, and 
the people generally considered them a valuable acquisition. 
Fig. 148.— Ring-necked Pheasant. 
