Concord, Mass.
1912.
October
&
September
(No 3)

Ring-necked Pheasants.

  Many of the local sportsmen think that the Pheasants
have already driven out the Grouse from certain of the
Concord woods. The number of breeding Grouses in the
woods about our farm & at Ball's Hill has diminished very
swiftly within the past two or three years but these covers
continue to be well stocked in winter by birds which come
to them before the middle of November from somewhere else.
Thus on November 17 of the present year [November 17, 1912] I started at
least 11 within a few minutes walk of our house although
they had been almost absent from the same place during the
whole of September & October.
  Nearly all the Pheasants that I have seen this autumn
have been cocks in full plumage and sometimes I have 
noted as many as three of them together. If the hens are
equally numerous they must be more retiring & elusive.
On October 23 [October 23, 1912] I flushed a hen Pheasant with her brood
of 7 or 8 half-grown young in a field on the Ritchie place.
This was literally the only flock of Pheasants that I have seen this autumn.