CHAPTER II. 



NATUEAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANTS (CONTINUED). 



NON-DOMESTIOITY— INTRODUCTION INTO 

 BRITAIN— DISTEIBUTION. 



T IS sometimes suggested by persons ignorant of the true nature 

 of the pheasant, that it might be domesticated and reared like 

 our ordinary farmyard fowl. Such persons are apparently not 

 aware that the instinct of domestication is one of the rarest 

 possessed by animals. Man has been for some thousands of 

 years capturing, subduing, and taming hundreds of different species 

 of animals of all classes ; but of these, the number that he has 

 succeeded in really domesticating does not amount to fifty. A very 

 large proportion of animals are capable of being tamed, and rendered 

 perfectly familiar with man ; but that is a totally distinct state from one of 

 domestication. The common pheasant is a good example of this distinction. In- 

 dividual examples may be rendered so tame as to become even troublesome from 

 their courage and familiarity ; but although others have been bred in aviaries 

 for scores of generations, their offspring still retain their original wildness, and 

 when let out at large betake themselves to the woods and coverts as soon as able 

 to shift for themselves. On the other hand, the allied species, the jungle fowl 

 ( Gallus bcmhiva), the original of our domestic breeds of poultry, if reared in 

 confinement, becomes immediately domesticated, the young returning home at night 

 with a regularity that has given rise to the proverbial saying that " Curses, like 

 chickens, come home to roost." 



Examples of the tameness of individual pheasants are not rare ; to the 

 fearless nature of a sitting hen I have already alluded. The males become even 

 more familiar, and even at times aggressive ; one of the most amusing examples 

 was recorded some time since by a correspondent, who wrote as follows : " Having 

 recently been on a visit to a friend of mine living in Kent, I had an opportunity 

 of there witnessing the effect of an extraordinary antipathy to crinoline exemplified 



