The Pheasant. '5 



The Chinese species was also introduced into St. Helena, by the Portuguese, in 

 1 5 13, and still flourishes under protection, although in a country so totally different 

 from its original locality. 



Naturally the Pheasant is a forest bird, inhabiting the margins of the wooded 

 districts and coming into the open country to feed. The Pheasant closely resembles 

 in its internal structure, the common fowl, and, like it, is an omnivorous feeder. 

 Grain, roots, berries, herbage, fruits, and insects, are all devoured. Ants' eggs, 

 in localities where they are prevalent, form the favourite food of the young. 

 There are few berries, fruits, or seeds that it will not eat, acorns and beech masts 

 forming a large proportion of its dietary during the latter part of the 3'ear. The 

 quantity of food taken by it is very great. Thompson, the natural historian of 

 Ireland, took thirty-seven acorns from the crop of one bird. Although injurious 

 to the agriculturist by feeding upon grain, its value in other directions cannot be 

 too highly appreciated. Twelve hundred wire worms have been taken out of the 

 crop of a single Pheasant, and nearly five hundred grubs of the well-known 

 daddy-long-legs, or crane fly, so destructive to the roots of grass, and I have 

 taken fifty snails, Helix nemoralis, of full size, out of the crop of a Pheasant. 

 There is no doubt, as Lord Lilford maintains, that the Pheasant, when not in 

 unreasonable numbers, is a good friend to the farmer, from the enormous number 

 of wire-worms and noxious insects it devours, to say nothing of its liking for the 

 seeds and roots of various weeds. The Pheasant is also a carnivorous feeder. 

 Examples have been taken containing in their crops such articles as field mice 

 and slow worms. Sometime since I had the opportunity of examining three small 

 vipers that were taken from the crop of a hen Pheasant. 



The flight of the Pheasant is exceedingly strong and rapid. Mr. Cordeaux 

 records their flying across the Humber where the stream is four miles in width. 

 Like most gallinaceous birds, however, its food is sought upon the ground, and 

 it is a true type of the rasorial or scratching birds. It runs with great speed, 

 and not unfrequently seeks safety in rushing through the coverts in place of 

 taking flight. The species is polygamous, one male associating with several females 

 The nest is a mere hollow scraped in the ground, and the eggs are usually about 

 eight or nine in number. After hatching the female is deserted by the male and 

 has the sole charge of the young brood. The period of incubation is twenty-four 

 days. Pheasants usually lay in this country in April or May, but in consequence 

 of the artificial state in which they are kept, and the abundance of food with 

 which they are supplied, nesting at other seasons occasionally occurs. This feeding, 

 especially if maize be the corn supplied, renders them so fat that their weight 

 occasionally is developed to an extraordinary degree. Pheasants of upwards of five 



