The Common Pheasant 83 
mould. I sometimes find pheasants, at this period, dead in the plantations, and now and 
then take them up weak and languid, and quite unable to fly. I will mention here a little 
robbery by the pheasants, which has entirely deprived me of a gratification I used formerly 
to experience in an evening's saunter down the vale. They have completely exterminated 
the grasshoppers. For the last fourteen years I have not once heard the voice of this 
merry summer charmer in the party." 
We may watch common birds and animals for 300 days in the year and never once 
see them do anything that is not well known to .us, and yet on the 301st day an incident 
may occur which may be new. I had proof of this on the morning of April 18, 1908, 
when I was walking in the forest of St. Leonard's with my wife. We noticed a fine 
cock Pheasant under a large holly tree about 70 yards from the path. Being in a place 
where people are constantly passing, the bird took no notice of us, but stood for a 
long time gazing upwards towards the outer branches of the holly. It being an 
unusual time of day for a Pheasant to go to roost, we halted and watched the bird, 
which presently opened its wings and fluttered up to a branch about 12 feet from the 
ground. Here its wings ceased to beat, and I saw it distinctly seize a berry and 
drop to the ground with closed wings. The Pheasant repeated the act five times as 
we watched it, and each time it picked off and swallowed a berry. I have not seen 
or heard of any gallinaceous bird doing such a thing before, and its actions were more 
like those of a warbler or a fly-catcher than of a Pheasant. 
Another discovery in the natural history of the Pheasant was quite new to me, but 
it is known, I find, to a few who keep these birds in pens. It is that the cock Pheasant, 
when he has paired or gathered his wives, makes use of a gentle note or chuckle. This 
is constantly repeated as the male walks about with the female, but the observer must 
be within two or three yards of the birds or he cannot hear it. I was waiting for 
young rabbits one evening in May 1906, when I observed a cock Pheasant with two 
hens coming out of St. Leonard's Forest towards me. Pheasants are amongst the 
keenest-eyed of birds, and the smallest movement even in a tree will attract their 
attention. But I hid myself close to the trunk about 10 feet from the ground, and 
the Pheasant came to the foot of my tree and pecked about there for some time. I 
heard a curious crooning or chuckling note coming, as I thought, from one of the hens, 
but presently these passed away to some distance, and I ascertained that the noise 
was emitted by the cock. Since then I have had several opportunities of hearing the 
cock Pheasant use his amorous notes. Mr. Thorburn has a male which always keeps 
chuckling as it walks about the aviary with its hens in spring. 
My excellent correspondent, Mr. Hugh Wormald, a close observer of birds, sends 
me the following interesting note : — 
"P. colckicus, torqtiatus, versicolor, and mongolicus, all chuckle in the spring. At 
this season cock pheasants call their hens to feed when they find a special tit-bit, in the 
same way that domestic fowls do ; the feathers are fluffed out and the head lowered over 
the object which they keep pecking at, at the same time making a crooning chuckle. I 
think this is a common practice among gallinaceous birds. Most of the quails do it, and 
when one sees male Harlequin or Chinese painted quails calling their hens to feed, it is 
a pretty sure sign that they intend to nest." 
