12 PHEASANT. 



and grubs of all kinds. We have seen boiled vermicelli recommended, but cannot speak 

 from experience, as to its fitness or otherwise. Young Pheasants when first hatched are 

 covered with a soft down, and are able at once to run about and feed themselves. Female 

 Pheasants, when confined, as in an aviary, make but indifferent mothers, and it is best 

 to give any eggs so produced to the foster-mother above recommended. 



The Pheasant is subject, like the common fowl, and other gallinaceous birds, to the 

 presence of an intestinal worm, {Fasciola trachea, Montagu,) in the trachea or wind-pipe, 

 and which produces death from suffocation caused by the inflammation and swelling of the 

 lining membrane; this is greatly irritated by the little animal, which adheres to the 

 surface by a sucker, and no doubt derives its nutriment from the mucous secretion of 

 the part: Montagu recommends careful fumigation with the smoke of tobacco, as being 

 the only remedy that can be depended upon. The powerfully depressing action of tobacco 

 is well known to all physicians, and it is probable that its effect on the 'Fasciola;' is 

 to destroy life at once. 



Many' inveterate smokers might, if they would, derive a salutary lesson from the above 

 relation, for, although the effect is not so powerful on them as on- the unfortunate worm, 

 yet tobacco cannot fail to exercise an injurious influence on the system, and we never yet 

 knew any one much addicted to smoking whose digestive system was in an entirely healthy 

 condition. The disease caused by the 'Fasciola' is commonly called the Gapes, and chiefly 

 attacks the young birds. The application of the remedy is very simple, the birds are 

 placed in a box, and tobacco smoke is blown into it from a tobacco-pipe; they cannot 

 then fail to breathe the smoke, which coming into immediate contact with the worms, 

 causes their destruction. 



The occurrence of female Pheasants in a plumage very nearly resembling that of the 

 male is by no means uncommon. The tail increases in length, the scarlet skin round 

 the eye is developed, and the plumage generally assumes more or less that of the male 

 bird. It however always, we believe, is duller in hue, and wants that extreme brilliancy 

 which is so characteristic of the cock Pheasant. In these cases the change seems to depend 

 either upon the advanced age of the bird, or else in younger birds upon a diseased condition 

 of the ovaries; for none exhibiting this curious change of plumage have ever been known 

 to breed. One which was bred on the estate of a friend of ours, and was remarkably 

 tame and familiar, assumed this plumage at the age, we believe, of thirteen years. Similar 

 changes occur occasionally in the domestic poultry, and the lordly Peafowl, and probably 

 in most other birds of this order. 



There is a variety of the Pheasant having a white ring round the neck, which 

 is not uncommon, and which used to be considered a distinct species from the ordinary 

 one, but is now proved to be only a variety, as it will breed with the Common Pheasant, 

 and the presence of ring-necked birds in the young brood seems to be quite accidental, 



