40
Concord, Mass.
Spring and early summer.
1913.

98.  Ring-necked Pheasant. Literally swarming throughout the entire Concord
Region and perhaps nowhere there more abundantly represented than
on our place. Near Ball's Hill they seem to haunt by preference the
narrow belt of woods and thickets bordering on the river meadows
on which they all roam whenever the water is not high enough to
flood the grass. At morning and evening they feed out in open
cultivated fields & sometimes remain in them throughout the day wherever
they can find shetering [sheltering] patches of grass or bushes however restricted.
At the Farm they seek their food chiefly in the field in front
of the house resorting to it soon after sunrise and an hour or so
before sunset. Their favorite diurnal haunts there are the river
and our brush-grown Berry Pasture. From the latter a [male],
followed closely by 3 or four [females], has been in the habit of
emerging daily at the hours just mentioned through March & April
to visit our field. Crossing the grassy meadow and the road
on foot all four or five birds would often pass up our
driveway in single file before entering the field where they might
feed quietly & close together for an hour or more, if undisturbed,
gleaning chiefly in a corn stubble early in the season, roaming
over the whole field after it had been sown broadcast with
Japanese millet. If, as often happened, there was another
cock Pheasant already there the birds arriving from the 
Berry Pasture would at once make straight for him,
running very swiftly, and drive him out. In every direction,
far and near, Pheasants could be heard crowing at morning &
evening from the house. They are exceedingly wary birds, impossible
to approach closely in the open & as difficult to stalk as Black Ducks
where there is sheltering cover. Yet they often leave their tracks in
our flower garden & sometimes enter the poultry yard to feed there.
I picked up a freshly dropped egg in Pulpit Rock woods on April 30 [April 30, 1913]
& started several young as big as quail and accompanied by both parents
at the Ritchie's place on June 27 [June 27, 1913], but as yet I have found no nests.