PHEASANTS. 117 



difficulty in getting close enough to revel in the displayed 

 beauties of perhaps a score of cocks. It is different out here. 

 Only once have I been able to watch at close quarters the 

 movements of a full-grown cock-pheasant in his prime. I 

 was just crossing a reed-covered ditch, once upon a time in 

 mid-winter, when I saw flying straight towards me a fine 

 male bird. As luck would have it, he alighted within a yard 

 or two of me, and for several minutes I had the pleasure of 

 watching his display. Why he should have chosen that 

 particular moment to strut about, backward and forward, in 

 the golden sunshine, I cannot tell, but there he was, all 

 unconscious of my presence, "showing off." There might 

 have been a hen in the neighbourhood, but the time was 

 Christmas time, and if courting was in progress it was either 

 decidedly late or preternaturally early. A fully complete 

 description of such a bird is as unnecessary as it is impossible. 

 Here there will be no attempt at it. Suffice it to say that 

 five minutes' of such pleasure is worth days of hard walking 

 over hill and dale, through copse and cover. A slight move- 

 ment on my part, and I was self-betrayed. The astonishment 

 which my visitor displayed when he found a "foreign devil" 

 close to him was only equalled by his hurry to get off into 

 the next province. In part payment for his performance the 

 charge of "villainous saltpetre" which. might otherwise have 

 gone after him was withheld. But when birds were plentiful 

 it used to be by no means difficult to get distant views of 

 pheasants feeding in the early morning or evening up-country, 

 and then with a good glass there was ample opportunity for 

 study without alarm. 



Seen in a coloured picture or preserved in a museum, 

 and away from its natural environment, it would seem utterly 

 impossible for a male pheasant to hide himself amongst a few 

 tufts of dead winter grass. But, as every sportsman knows 

 to his loss, not only is hiding possible, but it seems as easy 

 and complete as if the earth had opened and swallowed up the 

 quarry he is so anxious to retrieve. A little explanation will 

 help in some small degree to show how this is. The tints of 

 the pheasant contain red, blue, black, green, various shades 

 of brown, and yellow. Now all these except the black and 

 blue are to be found in the cover which the bird frequents. 

 The browns and yellows are plentiful enough amongst the 

 blades of grass and straw. The reds are no less common in 

 stalks and ground leaves, the greens fit in amongst those 

 hardy plants which defy frost and cold alike, whilst the blacks 

 and dark blues serve to represent the shadows and dark 

 places between the stalks and under the leaves of the plants. 

 My own experience in this, which has extended over nearly 

 half a century, is centred in one incident. I had dropped a 



