PHEASANTS. 425 



mates, for they are polygamous. On these occasions they engage 

 in such desperate conflicts that the weaker bird is often killed. 



The hen Pheasant makes her nest on the ground, in the midst of 

 some dense thicket, and lays from twelve to twenty eggs, which 

 require twenty-four days to hatch. 



The mother does not manifest that care and solicitude for her 

 young which are so marked in the majority of other birds ; she 

 does not even specially recognise her own progeny, for she pays 

 equal attention to all the young of her race that surround her. 

 TVe must not, however, expect to find much maternal love in a 

 bird which does not shrink from breaking her own eggs to gratify 

 an unnatural appetite. 



The Pheasant is not remarkable for its intelligence, for, in spite 

 of its suspicious nature, it falls an easy victim to the poacher. 



Pheasants, although they breed in a wild state in our climate, 

 are principally raised in vast enclosures called pheasantries, where 

 all the necessaries to existence are provided for them. As the 

 females are bad mothers, it is no unusual thing for their eggs 

 to be hatched by Domestic Fowls. During the first two months 

 of existence the young Pheasants require the greatest care, for 

 they are predisposed to numerous maladies. Their favourite food 

 is ants' eggs. 



The flesh of the mature is very savoury, but rather dry, and 

 epicures consider that it ought not to be eaten till hung a long 

 time, when it is said to be " high," a requisite which by analogy 

 has extended to other game. There is one very curious pecu- 

 liarity common to certain birds belonging to the family of which 

 we have been speaking, and which is especially remarkable 

 in the Pheasants — it is that when old females become unfruitful 

 they assume the plumage of males. It is said that young 

 Pheasants undergo the same change when deprived of their 

 reproductive organs. 



The Grolden Pheasant {Phasianus pictus), Fig. 171, and the 

 Silver Pheasant {P- nychthemerus, Linn.), are two beautiful birds, 

 originally from- China and Japan, and now naturalised to Europe. 

 The former, clothed in purple and gold, bears a golden-yellow 

 tuft on its head ; the black-and-white costume of the latter is not 

 inferior in beauty to the preceding. Linnasus has named them 



