218 Soemmerring's Pheasant. 



and margins of the feathers, so as to show the lance-head 

 form of the feathers. This specimen was taken on board the 

 flagship Independence and preserved. 



" ' The specimen of the other species that I saw was shot 

 by Mr. Heine, who made a very beautiful painting of it. The 

 two birds are found in the same localities, and seem to be 

 similar in habits. 



" ' The Japanese system of agriculture, although very 

 minute, and appropriating all available land to some useful 

 purpose, yet affords abundant shelter for the native fauna. 

 Scarcely any land is tilled except such as can be watered, so 

 that the tops of hills and large portions of mountainous and 

 precipitous places are appropriated to the growth of timber, 

 or left covered with the primitive forest. These wooded 

 districts afford shelter for wild hogs, foxes, and racoons (the 

 skins of which were seen), as well as for the pheasants ; and 

 they all descend in turn to plunder the crops, or steal the 

 chickens in the valleys. During the first part of our stay at 

 Simoda the cultivated fields afforded no food for the pheasants. 

 The natives told us there were plenty in the hills ; but no one 

 was willing to undertake to show them, and several rambles 

 through the bushes where these birds- were suppo'sed to feed 

 ended in disappointment. Only once I had a glimpse of a 

 brood of young ones near a hut in the mountains, but they 

 immediately disappeared by running very rapidly. Perhaps 

 one reason of our want of success is to be found in the fact 

 that the wheat was ripe, and partially harvested before we left 

 (June 24), so that during the time of our efforts they were 

 enabled to fill their crops occasionally from the wheatfields, 

 and lie very close in the hills during the day, without being 

 under the necessity of wandering in search of food. 



" ' The note of one or the other of these species of pheasants 

 was heard frequently. On the top of a precipitous hill, about 

 a mile south of Simoda, covered by small pines and a very 

 thick growth of shrubbery, a pheasant (so we were assured 

 by the Japanese) passed the weary hours while his mate was 



