BROWN EARED-PHEASANT 173 



or diving headlong into the undergrowth. The rounded wings are spread to their 

 fullest extent, while the tail, on the contrary, is quite closed, except when the bird is 

 about to alight. Every movement told of extreme exertion and unusual effort, and 

 however much we may admire the carriage and gait of this pheasant on the ground, 

 there is little to be said in praise of it when on the wing. I doubt if an Eared-pheasant 

 is capable of flying uphill or even on a level. In spite of the heavy body, there is no 

 hint of awkwardness when the bird is running at full speed. Each step seems a 

 springing leap which carries the bird along at a steady, ostrich-like gait, entirely unlike 

 the awkward half amble with which these pheasants in captivity will often run towards 

 their food. 



When we come to know the relative amount of trust which birds put in their 

 protective colouring ; when we compare the exact methods of escape, one with another, 

 all these instinctive habits will be of greater value in judging of the dangers and 

 correlating, the effect upon their form and plumage of the various factors in their 

 environment than all the theorizing which we can bring to bear upon the subject. 



The Brown Eared-pheasant is monogamous, and in early spring the flocks, as I 

 have said, break up into pairs of mated birds. I have already spoken of the casual 

 fighting among the males, and in captivity I have noticed that in sidling up to their 

 keeper, preparing to attack him, as certain irritable individuals sometimes will, they go 

 through a lateral display which very probably also characterizes their courtship. The 

 nearest wing is lowered, the opposite raised, while the tail is spread wider than I 

 have seen it at any other time, and is very clearly the principal object of display or 

 intimidation, as the case may be. 



The nest is invariably placed in the shelter of the pine or birch woods, and is truly 

 pheasant-like, a mere hollow in the ground or among dead leaves. Several natives 

 independently gave me five to eight as the number of eggs, and I am inclined to accept 

 this as correct. The eggs and young I have treated under the birds in captivity. 



RELATION TO MANKIND 



The Brown Eared-pheasant is no lover of mankind or his habitations, and though 

 not refusing to make an occasional meal from a grain-field of barley or millet, when the 

 occasion offers, yet these birds are seldom found in the immediate vicinity of Chinese 

 villages or even isolated farms. Among the Chinese there has been in the past little 

 demand for the flesh of this or other birds, and even the hungry Caucasian finds 

 little joy in the rather tough, and exceedingly stringy flesh. Young birds are better 

 eating, but in any case the bird is far inferior to the ring-necked pheasant as a dish for 

 the table. This is doubtless due in part to its diet, for the flesh of a captive bird, 

 which has been fed on grain for some time, is as delicate as that of any pheasant. In 

 many places where it was formerly abundant, however, it has now been exterminated, 

 owing both to a newly acquired desire for a meat diet on the part of many Chinese and 

 because of the destruction of the woods in which it nests and roosts, and in which it found 

 safety from pursuing enemies. David, as long ago as 1877, voiced much the same 

 sentiments, and to-day all the Eared-pheasants which approach the haunts of man have 

 but short shrift, their size and regular habits rendering them an easy prey to the Chinese 



