CHAPTER II. 



The Pheasant in History — Introduction into 

 Britain — Distribution . 



IT is sometimes suggested by persons ignorant of the true 

 nature of the pheasant that it might be domesticated and 



reared Hke our ordinary farmyard fowl. Such persons are 

 apparently not aware that the instinct of domestication is 

 one of the rarest possessed by animals. Man has been for some 

 thousands of years capturing, subduing, and taming hundreds 

 of different 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 famihar 

 with man ; 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 

 many generations, their offspring still retain their original wild- 

 ness, and when let out at large betake themselves to the woods 

 and coverts as soon as they are able to shift for themselves. 

 On the other hand, the allied species, the jungle fowl [Galhs 

 ferrugineus) , the original of our domestic breeds of poultry, 

 if reared in confinement, becomes immediately domesticated, 

 the young returning home at night with a regularity that 

 has given rise to the proverbial saying that " Curses, hke 

 chickens, come home to roost." 



Examples of the tameness of individual pheasants are not 

 rare ; to the fearless nature of a sitting hen I have already 

 alluded. The males become even more familiar, and at 

 times aggressive ; one of the most amusing examples was 



