170 The Common Pheasant. 



cross between the old English bird and the Eing-neck 

 (P. torquatus)." This statement is equally true of all tjie well- 

 preserved districts of England, in many of which the varieties 

 are still more comijlex in .consequence of the introduction 

 of the Japanese species (P. versicolor), and more recently 

 of the Mongolian (P. mongolicus). Traces of the cross between 

 the Japanese pheasant and our ordinary bird can still be seen 

 occasionally among the cocks killed in a day's shooting, These 

 birds can always be distinguished by the beautiful peacock- 

 green markings of the tail coverts, which are quite different 

 from the burnished copper-reds in the tail coverts of the 

 Mongohan pheasants and those of the black neck, though the 

 Chinese birds show something similar in colouring which is 

 not, however, so brilliant. , 



In these circumstances., I have thought it desirable to quote 

 the description of the common pheasant from the first volume 

 of Macgillivray's " British Birds," 1837, inasmuch as that 

 author's descriptions are unrivalled for their accuracy and 

 attention to detail, and at the date at which it was published 

 the common species had not in Scotland been crossed with 'any 

 of the more recent importations. , 



Macgillivray thus describes the sexes of 1^. colchicus,: — . 



"Male. — The legs are stronger; the tarsi, which are stout 

 and a little compressed, have about seventeen plates in each 

 of their anterior series. The first toe, which is very small, 

 has five, the second twelve, the third twenty-two, the fourth 

 nineteen scutella. The spur on the back of the tarsus is 

 conical, blunt, and about a quarter of an inch long. 



"The feathers of the upper part of the head are oblong- 

 and blended, of the rest of the head and the upper part of 

 the neck imbricated and rounded, of the fore-neck and breast 

 broad, slightly emarginate or abruptly rounded ; of the back 

 broad and rounded, of the rump elongated, with loose filaments ; 

 of the sides very long, of the abdomen downy, of the legs soft 

 and rather short. Directly over the aperture of the ear is a 

 small erectile tuft of feathers. The wings are short, very 



