KING-NECKED PHEASANT. 
197 
modern days, and conducted in a most magnificent 
scale, that of Chantilli, 54,878 head of various 
game were killed in one year ; and during a pe- 
riod of thirty-two years, 12,304 is the lowest num- 
ber that was obtained. In the same course of years 
the number of pheasants killed was 86,193, averaging 
nearly 2700 yearly. In Germany, there were some 
parties scarcely inferior in massacre. A party of ten 
in Bohemia are said to have killed in two days, with- 
in a limited extent, above 950 pheasants, besides 
about 1200 partridges; and in another part of Ger- 
many, twelve sportsmen, if such a name is applicable 
to them, killed in one day of fourteen hours, 39,000 
head of game, of which pheasants bore a proportion. 
At the Christmas battcau in England, 800 to 1000 
head of game is a frequent daily amount, the greater 
share of which are hares and pheasants. From these 
some idea may be formed of the extent to which 
breeding and turning out is carried. 
The pheasant is subject to considerable variety of 
plumage. Like most of the gallinaceous birds, as we 
have already mentioned, the female assumes the plum- 
age of the male, and those in this state should be kill- 
ed or expelled the preserves, as with the livery, they 
assume a disposition at war with their own race. They 
vary in being mottled with white, or becoming en- 
tirely of that colour; and Temminck is of opinion 
that in such cases the change is owing to disease in 
some of their functions, and mentions that persons 
who have long had the charge of a pheasantry, have 
