NESTING OP PHEASANT. 



with the utmost amity. I then had the birds driven off, and saw fifteen partridge's 

 and sixteen pheasant's eggs laid indiscriminately together. The eggs were placed 

 as though the nest had been common to both." Another correspondent writes : 

 " About three weeks ago, when walking round a small wood belonging to me, and 

 in which I usually breed a good sprinkle of pheasants, I discovered a partridge 

 sitting on the edge of the bank of the wood; and when she went off to feed I 

 was much astonished to find that she was sitting on nine pheasant's eggs and 

 thirteen of her own, and, after sitting the usual time, hatched them aU out." Mr. 

 Bi. Bagnall-Wild records that "in June his keeper noticed three partridge nests, 

 with thirteen, eleven, and eleven partridges' eggs, and four, two, and two pheasants' 

 eggs, respectively in them. He carefully watched, and in all three cases found 

 that the pheasants were hatched with the young partridges; and in September the 

 young pheasants stiU kept with their respective coveys of partridges." Some- 

 times the hen pheasant, and not the partridge, is the foster parent. In the 

 neighbourhood of Ohesham, on the 6th of May, 1873, three pheasants' nests were 

 observed to contain the following eggs : — the first, on which the hen was sitting, 

 twenty-two' pheasant's and two French partridge's eggs; the second, eleven pheasant's 

 and five French partridge's eggs; and the third six pheasant's and seven French 

 partridge's eggs. Mr. Higgins, of Hambledon, states that "A pheasant hatched outj 

 in a piece of vetches of mine, seven partridges and five pheasants on July 6th. She 

 sat on nine of her own eggs and eight partridge eggs." In some cases the nest is 

 even of a more composite character, and the eggs of the common fowl, and those 

 of partridges and pheasants, have all been found together ; and an instance has been 

 narrated of three wild hen pheasants laying together in the nest of a tame duck. 



Although there is usually some attempt at concealment under covert, pheasants' 

 nests are not unfrequently placed, even by perfectly wild birds, in very exposed 

 situations. Mr. John Walton, of Sholton Hall, Durham, related the following 

 account of the singular tameness of a wild bred bird : " A hen pheasant — a perfectly 

 wUd one so far as rearing is concerned, for we have no artificial processes here — 

 selected as the site for her nest a hedge by a private cart road, where she was exposed 

 to the constant traf6.c of carts, farm servants, and others, passing and repassing her 

 quarters, all of which she took with infinite composilre. She was very soon dis- 

 covered on her nest, and actually suffered herself when sitting to be stroked down 

 her plumage by the children and others who visited her, and this without budging 

 an inch. In fact, she seemed rather to like it. Perhaps she became a pet with 

 the neighbours from this unusual docility, and her brood (fourteen in number) was 

 thereby saved; for every egg was hatched, and the young birds have all got 

 safely away." 



Habitually a nester on the ground, the hen pheasant will sometimes select 

 the deserted nest of an owl or squirrel as a place for the deposition and incubation 



C 



