Weight. 21 



The artificial state in which these birds exist, 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 than would occur in the case of birds in a 

 perfectly wild state. In some instances the size is 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. 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 

 weights were accurately ascertained, in the presence of several 

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

 On November 12, 1897, a cock was shot at Pluckley, in Kent, 

 which weighed four and three-quarter pounds. 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 one 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 further stated that " the 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 hybrid appearance 

 whatever " ; and Mr. Shaw stated that he weighed it several 

 times. Moreover, he said, " the bird, had it been picked 

 up when shot, would, I have little doubt, have weighed 

 six pounds, there being nothing in its craw but two single 

 grains of Indian corn ; and when the length of time it 

 remained wounded on the ground, with a broken thigh and 



