WEIGHT OF PHEASANTS. 19 



in tlie wood we were in, a very young obick pheasant; it could 

 not have been Hatched more than a week. My keeper tells 

 me he has found them (but very rarely) as young in 

 September. I forward the young chick to you, in order 

 that you may; inspect it." 1 carefully examined theyOung 

 bird, which was not more than two or three days old. These 

 late-hatched birds were in all probability the produce of a 

 second laying during the season. 



The artificial state in which these birds exists as supplied 

 with nutritive food and protected in our coverts and preserves, 

 leads to other departures from their natural conditions. Thus 

 variations of plumage and size are much more frequent and 

 more marked thau would occur in the case of birds in a 

 perfectly wild state. In some ihstances the size ig very 

 greatly increased. Hen pheasants usually weigh from two 

 pounds to two pounds and a quarter, whilst the usual weight 

 of cock pheasants is from about three pounds to three pounds 

 and a half. Mr. Yarrell, in his " History of British Birds," 

 mentions two unusually large ; he says " The lighter bird 

 of the two just turned the scale against four and a half 

 pounds ; the other took the scale down at once. The 

 ty^eights were accurately ascertained, in the presence of several 

 friends, to decide a wager of which I was myself the loser." 

 One of five pounds and half an ounce was sent me by Mr. Carr, 

 of the Strand ; this was a last year's bird of the common 

 species. And in 1859 cue bird, of the enormous weight of 

 five pounds and three-quarters, was sent by Mr. Akroyd, of 

 Boddington Park, Nantwich, to Mr. Shaw, of Shrewsbury, 

 for preservation. Mr. Akroyd stated that "tue bird was 

 picked up with broken leg and wing forty-eight hours after 

 the covert was shot, so had probably lost weight to some 

 extent." In reply to the suggestion that it might possibly 

 have been a large hybrid between the pheasant and the 

 domestic fowl, Mr. Akroyd further stated "that the bird 

 looked all its weight, and was as distinguished amongst its 

 fellows as a turkey would be amongst fowls; yet it had no 



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