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 

 black 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 King-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. 



