188 PHEASANT. 



appearance of being bifid at the end; the feathers on the shoulders 

 have each more or less of a buff-coloured, curved mark in the middle, 

 bounded within and without with a black line ; the lower part of the 

 back the same, but less distinct; rump plain, glossy reddish brown, 

 with a tinge of green ; the wing coverts and quills brown, the first 

 variegated with yellowish white, the latter spotted on both webs with 

 the same ; belly and vent dusky ; tail cuneiform ; the longest feathers 

 twenty inches in length, the shortest less than five, and consists in 

 the whole of eighteen in number; all of them marked with transverse 

 bars of black on each side the shaft, about twenty-four in number 

 on the two middle ones, and on the others in proportion ; legs dusky, 

 with a blunt spur three quarters of an inch above the hind toe. 



The female is smaller. The general colour brown, varied with 

 grey, rufous, and blackish ; tail much shorter, but barred as in the 

 male ; and the regions of the ears covered with feathers. 



The Pheasant is at present found in a state of nature in almost 

 the whole of the Old Continent ; but supposed to have been 

 originally from Colchis, and particularly plentiful about the River 

 Phasis,* whence the name Pheasant was derived; first introduced 

 into Greece, and by degrees into others parts of the world; but not 

 found in any part of America;! and the wings being very short, they 

 are not made for long flights, and of course must have been purposely 

 conveyed to every place in which we now find them, rather than to 

 have come there by chance. J In many parts of England they are 



* " Argiva priraum sum transportata carina 



" Ante mihi notum est nil, nisi Phasis erat." — Mart. ep. I. xiii. 72. 



t Anson talks of Pheasants at the Isle of St. Catherine, on the Coast of Brazil, Voy. 

 p. 62. and again at Chequetan, 30 leagues west of Acapulco, in the Province of Mexico, 

 Voy. p. 304. but these cannot be our Pheasants ? 



% They are completely imprisoned in the Isolo Madre, in the Laggo Maggiore, at Turin, 

 as they cannot fly over the Lake; for on their attempting to do this, they are drowned, un- 

 less the boatmen pick them up. — Keysl. Trav. i. 378. 



