158 PHEASANTS FOB COVEBTS AND AVI ABIES. 



These ring-necks are now common in most parts of the 

 country where pheasants are preserved. The good points of 

 the Chinese are largely shared by their half-bred progeny; 

 hence the cross between the common and the Chinese is a 

 valuable introduction to our preserves, retaining as it does to 

 so great a degree the beauty and early fertility of the pure 

 Chinese race, to which it adds great hardihood and larger 

 size, but the birds are generally regarded as more apt to stray, 

 and some gourmets maintain they are not quite so good a bird 

 on the table as the pure-bred P. colcMcus. 



The extent to which the interbreeding of the two species 

 has taken place is well shown in the following interesting 

 account taken from Mr. Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk " : — 

 " In its semi-domesticated state, like our pigeons and poultry, 

 the common pheasant crosses readily with its kindred species, 

 and to so great an extent has this been carried in Norfolk 

 that, except in the wholly unpreserved districts, it is difficult 

 at the present time to find a perfect specimen of the old 

 English type (P. colchicus) without some traces, however 

 slight, of the ring-neck, and other marked features of the 

 Chinese pheasant (P. torquatus), and in many localities of the 

 Japanese (P. versicolor). In looking over a large number of 

 pheasants from different coverts, as I have frequently done of 

 late years in our fish market, I have noticed every shade of 

 difierence from the nearly pure-bred ring-neck, with its buff- 

 coloured flanks and rich tints of lavender, and green on the 

 wing and tail-coverts, to the common pheasant in its brilliant 

 but less varied plumage, with but one feather in its glossy 

 neck just tipped with a speck of white. Some birds of the 

 first cross are scarcely distinguishable from the true P. 

 torquatus, and are most gorgeous objects when flushed in the 

 sunlight on open ground ; but as the ' strain •" gradually dies 

 out, the green and lavender ' tints on the back begin to fade, 

 and the rich orange flanks are toned down by degrees ; though 

 still the most marked feature of all, the white ring on the 

 neck, descends from one generation to another, and the 



