Nest, &c. 
300 GALLINEH. PHASIANUS. Common 
retires for the night to the longest grass, and other thick co- 
ver, and does not begin to mount again until towards the end 
of September or the beginning of October, having at that pe- 
riod renewed its plumage. Where pheasants are numerous, 
the males are in general found associated during the winter,— 
and separate from the females; and it is not until about the 
end of March that they allow the approach of the latter with- 
out exhibiting signs of displeasure, or at least of indifference. 
At the above-mentioned time, the male bird assumes an al- 
tered appearance; the scarlet of his cheeks, and around his 
eyes, acquires additional depth of colour, and he walks with 
a more measured step, with his wings let down, and with his 
tail carried in a more erect position. 
Being polygamous, he now takes possession of a certain — 
beat, from whence he drives every male intruder, and com- 
mences his crowing, attended with a peculiar clapping of the 
wings, and which answers as the note of invitation to the 
other sex, as well as of defiance to his own.—The female 
makes a very inartificial nest upon the ground in long grass, 
or thick underwoed, and not unfrequently in fields of clover, 
and lays from ten to fourteen eggs, of a clear oil-green co- 
lour. The young are excluded during the months of June 
and July, and continue with the hen till they begin to moult, 
and to assume the adult plumage ; which, commencing about 
the beginning of September, is perfected by the middle of 
Distinction the following month, and after this period the young males 
between 
young and are only to be distinguished from the older birds by the com- 
old male 
dirds. 
parative shortness and bluntness of the tarsal spur. 
In many of the large preserves of Pheasants in the south- 
ern counties of England, the breed is supported by great 
numbers being hatched under domestic fowls, and reared in 
confinement; then set at liberty as scon as they are fully 
able to provide for themselves. But, in the northern coun- 
ties this mode of replenishing the stock is seldom attempted, 
as these birds are prepared, by their natural economy, to in- 
crease very rapidly, and will do so wherever duc attention is 
