CHAPTEE II. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANTS 

 (CONTINUED). 



NON- DOMESTICITY — INTEODUCTION INTO 

 BEITAIN— DISTEIBUTIOF. 



^T IS sometime^Hj^^ested by persons ignorant of 

 the true "natur^t the pheasant, that it might be 

 domesticated and reared like our ordinary farm- 

 yard fowl. Such persons are apparently not aware 

 If that the instinct of domestication is one of the rarest 

 possessed by animals. Man has been for some thou- 

 sands of years capturing, subduing, and taming hundreds of 

 diflFerent species of animals of all classes: but of these the 

 number that he has succeeded in really domesticating does 

 not amount to fifty. A very large proportion of animals 

 are capable of being tamed, and rendered perfectly familiar 

 - with manj but this is a totally distinct state from one of 

 domestication. The common pheasant is a good example of 

 this distinction. Individual examples may be rendered so 

 tame as to become even troublesome from their courage and 

 familiarity; but although others have been bred in aviaries 

 for m.any generations, their offspring still retain their original 

 i wildness, and when let out at large betake themselves to 

 the woods and coverts as soon as able to shift for themselves. 

 On the other hand, the allied species, the jungle fowl {Gallus 

 ferugineus), the original of our domestic breeds of poultry. 



