16 NATURAL HISTORY OP THE PHEASANTS. 



and fear in being separated from his friends and protectors. Dick is a great 

 favourite, and on this account is suffered to take many lii3erties. When breakfast 

 is brought in he jumps on the table, and very unceremoniously helps himself to 

 bread, or to whatever he takes a fancy ; but, different from the magpie or jackdaw 

 under similar circumstances, Dick is easUy checked. He is fond of stretching 

 himself in the sunbeams ; and if this be not attainable, before the kitchen fire. 

 On being taken into the house he was presented to the view of the cat, the latter 

 at the same time given to understand that the bird was privileged, and that she 

 must not disturb him. The cat is evidently not fond of Dick as an inmate, but, 

 she abstains from violence. I have seen her, it is true, give him a blow with her 

 paw, but this only occurs when the bird attempts to take bread, &g., from her ; 

 and not always then, as she frequently suffers herself to be robbed by him. Dick 

 has also made friends with my pointers. He sleeps in my bed-room, but is by no 

 means so early a riser as his fraternity in a state of nature ; however, when he 

 comes forth his antics are amusing enough ; he shakes himself, jumps and flies 

 about the room for several minutes, and then descends into the breakfast room." 

 Whether this bird would or would not have continued tame and domesticated 

 during the following breeding season was unfortunately never ascertained, as it 

 partook of the fate of most pets, and was killed accidentally by the .opening of 

 a door. 



The incapacity of pheasants for domestication has been remarked by all those 

 who have tried ia vain to rear them as domestic birds. The late Mr. Charles 

 Waterton, of Walton HaU, made the attempt under the most advantageous circum- 

 stances, and thus recounts the result of his experiments : " Notwithstanding the 

 proximity of the pheasant to the nature of the barndoor fowl, still it has that within 

 it which baffles every attempt on our part to render its domestication complete. 

 What I allude to is, a most singular innate timidity, which never fails to show 

 itself on the sudden and abrupt appearance of an object. I spent some months in 

 trying to overcome this timorous propensity in the pheasant, but I failed completely 

 in the attempt. The young birds, which had been hatched under a domestic hen, 

 soon became very tame, and would even receive food from the hand when it was 

 offered cautiously to them. They would fly up to the window, and would feed in 

 company with the common poultry, but if anybody approached them unawares, off 

 they went to the nearest covert with surprising velocity ; they remained in it tiU all 

 was quiet, and then returned with their usual confidence. Two of them lost their 

 lives in the water by the unexpected appearance of a pointer, while the barndoor 

 fowls seemed scarcely to notice the presence of the intruder ; the rest took finally to 

 the woods at the commencement of the breeding season. This particular kind of 

 timidity, which does not appear in our domestic fowls, seems to me to oppose the 

 only, though at the same time an unsurmountable, bar to our final triumph over 



