PHEASANTS. 



237 



The Common 

 Pheasant. — 



Phasiaims 

 colchicus. 



Southern China to Fokien and Manchuria. They are birds of the forests Hke 

 the kahjes, and of a somewhat retired and solitary disposition, according to 

 Mr. F. Wilson, who writes of P. macrolopha : — "In the 

 remote forests of the interior of the Himalayas, on the report The Koklass 

 of a gun, all the koklass pheasants within half a mile or so will Pheasants. — 

 often crow after such a report. They will also crow after a clap Genus Pucrasia. 

 of thunder or any loud or sudden noise, and this peculiarity 

 seems to be confined to those which live in the dark shady woods of the interior, 

 as I never noticed them acting thus in the lower hills. The food of the koklass 

 pheasants is varied, like that of the kalijes, and consists, according to Mr. 

 Wilson, of leaves and buds, roots, grubs, acorns, seeds, berries, moss, and 

 flowers. The nest of P. macrolopha is described as a hole scraped in the 

 ground, and sheltered by a tuft of grass, or a bush, or rock. The species is 

 found nesting at an elevation of from 5,000 to 11,000 feet in the Himalayas." 

 To the genus Phasianus belong the birds which we all know fapiiliarly as 

 pheasants, and it is interesting as representing one of the few types peculiar 

 to the Palsearctic region. There are a great many species 

 of the genus Phasianus scattered through Europe, Central 

 Asia, and China, most of them being of the form and general 

 coloration of our common pheasant {P. colchicus), which is 

 supposed not to be a native of Western Europe, but to have 

 been imported from the Caucasus or from Asia Minor. 

 Recent discoveries of fossil remains, however, tend to prove that pheasants 

 of some kind were ancient inhabitants of the western Palsearctic region, 

 and it is quite possible that the pheasant of our own day is a descendant of 

 these old forms, and that the story of its introduction into England by the 

 Romans is a myth. At the present 

 time it is very difficult to find a pure- 

 bred pheasant in the British Islands, 

 as by far the greater number of 

 those birds killed in the autumn 

 have white rings round their necks, 

 owing to the introduction of the 

 Chinese ring-necked pheasants, with 

 which our native birds have freely 

 crossed. The genus Phasianus is 

 one of the few typical forms of birds 

 peculiar to the Palsearctic region, 

 for in the Himalayas it is repre- 

 sented by the clieer pheasant 

 (Catreus walliehii). Thus the true pheasants are found in temperate Europe, 

 where P. colchicus is the only representative species of the genus, to Central 

 Asia and China, where the species are many, though in these countries the 

 pheasants have either white rings on their necks or white patches on the 

 upper part of their wings. Of P. colchiciis there are several representative 

 races, as for instance P. talischensis, from Talisch, on the south-western border 

 of the Caspian Sea ; P. persicus, from the south-eastern shores of the Casjjiiin ; 

 and P. ^i-Mici'/iaiis, from North-Western Afghanistan. Thence in the Oxus 

 Valley, Zarafshan, and other localities in Central Asia, our conmion pb.easant 

 is represented by various species and races, for a description of which 

 students must search the writings of Mr. Ogilvie-Grant and others. The 

 ring-necked pheasants are found from Turkestan to Kuldja, Eastern Siberia, 



Fig. 20. — The Common I-'heasant 

 {Phasianus colchicus). 



