Practical Geme-Preserving. 16 



of the suitability of this pheasant for all the purposes 

 necessary to either an addition to our list of game-birds, 

 or as a means of improving the general stock. Thanks to 

 the courtesy of the Honourable Walter Rothschild, I am 

 able to supply the reader with the results of his extensive 

 trials of the Mongolian Pheasant upon his large preserves 

 at Tring Park, and it will probably be much to the point 

 if I give them in his own words : 



' ' At Tring we have had experience of acclimatisation 

 only with one foreign pheasant on a large scale : the 

 Mongolian Pheasant. This bird crosses freely with the 

 ordinary pheasants, and pure-bred, half-bred, and three- 

 quarters-bred birds alike are very early, strong flyers, and 

 generally much larger than an ordinary pheasant. This year 

 (1905) there have been killed over 2000 pheasants having 

 various crosses of Mongolian birds ranging from one-eighth 

 to seven-eighths, the latter differing only from pure 

 Mongolian by the slightly spotted rump. We have at the 

 moment of writing (December, 1905) about 70 hens and 

 30 cocks pure Mongolian Pheasants, and about 150 hens 

 and 100 cocks seven-eighths Mongolian in our breeding- 

 pens. 



" We find all crosses quite as fertile as, if not more so 

 than, pure birds. The Mongolian Pheasant is certainly 

 a most useful introduction, and both pure-bred and crosses 

 give a much better sporting bird and one of a much larger 

 average size than the ordinary pheasant, which is a mongrel 

 mixture of the true pheasant, the Chinese Ring-necked 

 Pheasant, and the green Japanese Pheasant." 



I do not think that I can add anything to the foregoing 

 which would tend to recommend the Mongolian bird 

 further to the general preserver than what the Honourable 

 Walter Rothschild has been good enough to allow me to 

 publish. Here we have the precise results of extensive 



