PHEASANT. b'D 



About the end of March the cock Pheasant begins to call 

 his mates together, by whom he is soon surrounded : the 

 number of them varies from six to nine, and with them he 

 wanders about in a certain district ; and at night the hen 

 birds roost in the same tree, or in a tree close by the cock. 

 When the weather is pleasant and mild, the hen begins to 

 lay as early as the month of May, and continues this for 

 four, five, or six weeks. When the hen Pheasant wants to 

 lay, she looks for a quiet place among long grasses, corn, 

 clover, and bent, or by the side of a dry ditch, and in such 

 a situation prefers a hollow spot, to which she carries some 

 dry roots, stalks, and hay, but gives herself little trouble in 

 constructing a nest, for she only lays them loosely one upon 

 another, and then deposits generally every other day one egg, 

 until she has laid from eight to twelve or fourteen : she sits 

 from twenty-four to twenty-six days, and four-and- twenty 

 hours on the young brood, after they are hatched, in order to 

 dry them thoroughly. From this moment the young brood 

 abandon the nest for ever, and are fed by their parent with 

 ants 1 eggs. The young are so very tender, that they cannot 

 bear even the moisture of a heavy dew on the ground ; and 

 rainy weather is, in this stage of their existence, frequently 

 fatal to them. In about a fortnight the young begin to show 

 their wings and tail from under the down ; and when they are 

 as big as quails, they follow the mother, fluttering along the 

 surface of the ground on their little wings : when half grown 

 they begin to roost on the same tree with the parent bird. 

 When there is any danger approaching, the parent gives a 

 slight call, and every bird instantly crouches flat on the 

 ground, where it remains perfectly still until the danger is 

 past. The male bird never takes any care about the hen, 

 nest, eggs, or young brood, in which he resembles the com- 

 mon domesticated fowls. The young male Pheasants are 

 the first to separate themselves from the family when they 



