Pheasants for 

 Coverts and Aviaries. 



CHAPTEE I. 



Natural History of the Pheasants. 



Structure, Food, and Habits. 



THE iDheasants, properly so called (as distinguished 

 from the alHed but perfectly distinct genera which 

 include the Gold and Silver pheasants, the Kaleege, the 

 Monaul, etc.), constitute the genus or group known to 

 naturalists under the title Phasianus. Of the true pheasants 

 no fewer than thirteen distinct species have been described 

 by Mr. D. G. Elhott, in his splendid foho monograph on the 

 Phasianida;. Of these several are known only by rare 

 specimens of the skins brought from httle explored Asiatic- 

 countries, and others cannot be regarded as anything more 

 than mere local or geographical varieties of well-known 

 species. Since the publication of ElHott's Phasianidce 

 several additional species have been described. 



Mr. Ogilvie-Grant in his valuable " Handbook on Game 

 Birds " published in Allen's " Natural History " enumerates 

 as many as eighteen species of true pheasants belonging to 

 the genus Phasianus, of which he takes the common species, 

 Phasianus colchicus, as the type, and additional species have 

 since been described by Mr. H. E. Dresser, in the Ibis, the 



