466 
THE NEST OF THE PHEASANT. 
deception of poachers, is, however, too amnsing to be omitted. Those nocturnal marauders 
were accustomed to haunt the fir plantations at night, and by looking upwards could easily see 
the Pheasants as they sat asleep across the branches, and bring them down with the gun, 
or even a noose on 
a long rod. So, 
thinking that pre- 
vention was better 
than prosecution, 
he first planted a 
number of thick 
holly clumps, dark 
as night in the in- 
terior, and quite 
impervious to hu- 
man beings unless 
cased in plate ar- 
mor. The Pheas- 
ants soon resorted 
to these fortresses, 
but their places 
were filled with a 
few hundred rough 
wooden Pheasants, 
which were nailed 
upon the fir 
REEVES’ PHEASANT . — Phasian us revesii. branches, and at 
night looked so 
exactly like the birds that the most practised eye could 
not discover the difference. After these precautions had 
been taken, the astute inventor was able to rest quietly 
at home and chuckle to himself at the nocturnal reports 
in the direction of the fir-wood. 
The nest of the Pheasant is a very rude attempt at 
building, being merely a heap of leaves and grasses col- 
lected together upon the ground, and with a very slight 
depression, caused apparently quite as much by the 
weight of the eggs as by the art of the bird. The eggs 
are numerous, generally about eleven or twelve, and their 
color is an uniform olive-brown. Their surface is very 
smooth. When I was a boy I well remember finding a 
Pheasant’s nest in a copse, taking the whole clutch and 
blowing them on the spot with perfect openness, being 
happily ignorant of the penalties attached to such a pro- 
ceeding, and not in the least acquainted with the risk 
until I exhibited my prize to some friends, and saw their 
horrified looks. 
The adult male Pheasant is a truly beautiful bird. 
The head and neck are deep steely-blue, “shot” with 
greenish-purple and brown ; and the sparkling hazel eye 
is surrounded with a patch of bare scarlet skin, speckled profusely with blue-black. Over the 
ears there is a patch of brown. The upper part of the back is beautifully adorned with light 
golden-red feathers, each being tipped with deep black ; and the remainder of the back is of the 
same golden-red, but marked with brown and a lighter tint of yellow without any admixture of 
red. The quill-feathers of the wing are brown of several shades, and the long quills of the tail 
