The Mongolian Pheasant 



the ducks, but there is no "bag limit" prescribed. This omission accords 

 with the well known practice of sportsmen of "killing off the mud-hens" at 

 the beginning of each season, so that they will not share the duck feed. 

 This unpopularity with the sporting fraternity was once the cause not 

 alone of the Coot's downfall, but of the postponement of some very much 

 needed legislation for the protection of the shore-birds. I will tell the 

 story, even if it is at the expense of the present senior senator from Cali- 

 fornia. In the legislative session of 1913, at the instance of the California 

 State Audubon Society, and through the courtesy of the Assembly Com- 

 mittee on Game, the author was permitted to draft the provisions of a 

 measure afterwards known as the "Guill bill," extending protection to 

 some forty odd species of birds, chiefly rails, cranes, herons, and shore- 

 birds. In this form the bill passed both houses "unanimously"; and the 

 State Audubon Society in convention assembled, some thirty days after 

 the adjournment of the Legislature, was in the very act of celebrating 

 the important victory, when word came that Governor Johnson had ve- 

 toed the bill. Some sporting friend had gotten the gubernatorial ear and 

 had denounced our measure as "freak legislation," because it had ex- 

 tended protection to the execrated mud-hen. The Coot was the goat and 

 has been ever since; but we had the satisfaction, a little later, of seeing the 

 Federal Government take a hand, and the Federal Regulations, supported 

 by the act of the California Legislature of 1915, now protect thirty-four 

 of the species for which exemption was provided by the Guill bill. 



No. 311 



Mongolian Pheasant 



Introduced. Phasianus torquatus Gmelin. 



Synonyms. — Ring-necked Pheasant. Chinese Pheasant. Denny Pheasant. 



Description. — Adult male: Sides of head largely bare, with livid skin; top of 

 head light greenish; short plumicorns dark green; throat and neck all around black, 

 with rich metallic reflections; a white cervical collar nearly meeting in front; fore-neck 

 and breast, well down, shining coppery red 'with golden and purplish reflections; sides 

 rich fulvous with black spots; belly mostly blackish; above with indescribable intricacy 

 of marking, — black, white, copper, fulvous, pale blue, viridian green, glaucous green, 

 etc., etc. (we are not morally responsible for the coloring of this marvelous exotic) ; tail 

 much lengthened, mostly greenish fulvous, edged with heliotrope-purple and cross- 

 banded with black. Adult female : Much plainer, mostly brownish and without white 

 collar; the upperparts more or less spotted and mottled with dusky; the underparts 

 nearly plain buffy brown; the tail-feathers barred for their entire length, dusk)' and 



I5fy 



