DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE, NEW ZEALAND, ETC. 23 



On the continent of Europe the pheasant is widely diffused throughout almost 

 all the congenial localities in the south and central portions, where any effort is 

 made in favour of its protection. In Scandinavia it has only recently heen 

 successfully introduced ; in 1867 we were informed by Mr. L. Lloyd, in his " Game 

 Birds of Sweden and Norway," that it is not found, although attempts on a large 

 scale were made to introduce it by the late King Oscar ; but from the severity of 

 the climate, and from the country swarming with vermin and birds of prey of aU 

 sorts, the experiment, in Mr. Lloyd's opinion, was not likely to be attended with 

 success. Since that date the attempt has been successfully made by Mr. Oscar 

 Dickson, who, in 1873, reared seven or eight hundred birds ; these have done well, 

 for, in the Morgenblad of November 10, 1877, it is recorded that " Mr. Oscar 

 Dickson and party shot in one day, on his property Bokedal, in Sweden, ninety 

 pheasants, one deer, one hare, and one woodcock. There were five guns." And the 

 same journal mentions that a brace of pheasants lived at full liberty on an estate 

 in the neighbourhood of Ohristiania. during the winter of 1876-7 without being fed 

 or taken care of, and that they hatched in the summer of 1877, and reared foTir 

 fiill-grown young ones. A brace more were let loose early in the spring of the 

 same year, and also hatched and reared in the open. The first brace escaped from 

 a pen, and nobody knew what had become of them. It was supposed that they 

 were either frozen to death during the severe winter, had died of starvation, or had 

 faUen an easy prey to foxes, cats, or hawks. But they survived, and found both 

 shelter and food for themselves. 



In New Zealand, the Great Britain of the southern hemisphere, the introduc- 

 tion of the pheasant has been a great success; so much so, that in a single season 

 that of 1871, six thousand birds were bagged in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 city of Auckland. Pheasants were first introduced into the province of Auckland 

 about twenty years since, seven males and two females, the only survivors of two 

 dozen shipped in China, comprising the original stock of the Chinese species. At 

 the same time a number of the common species were liberated in another part of 

 the colony. These were supplemented by six more Chinese birds in 1856. Both 

 species have multiplied exceedingly. 



The Chinese pheasant was also introduced by the Portuguese into the island 

 of St. Helena in the year 1513, and it is stated to have increased in numbers to 

 a very considerable extent; but we are informed by Mr. Elliott that the present 

 representatives of the original stock differ somewhat from their ancestors, both in 

 the colour and markings of the plumage, the effect of the change of climate acting 

 on the bird during many generations. 



In the countries nearest to the locality from whence the common pheasant 

 is supposed to have been derived, it is not, strange to say, abundant; thus the 

 Eev. H. B. Tristram informs us that it does not appear to be known in Syria, 



