292 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
with metallic purple or green margins ; feathers of the mantle 
and sides of the breast and flanks chestnut, with black centres 
and pinkish-grey margins ; an elongated patch of white black- 
tipped feathers below the eyes ; quills more coarsely barred and 
mottled with buif than in the male ; tail-feathers reddish-brown 
down the middle, shading into sandy-olive on the sides and 
with wide irregular triple bars of black, buff, and black. Total 
length, 24-5 inches; wing, 8-6; tail, 11-5; tarsus, 3-4. 
Range. — The Common Pheasant has been introduced in 
most parts of Europe, with the exception of Spain and 
Portugal, and the higher latitudes of Scandinavia and Russia. 
For this reason it is diflicult, if not impossible, to state 
accurately the limits of its true home. It appears, however, to 
be found in a wild state in Southern Turkey, Greece, and Asia 
Minor as far east as Transcaucasia, and it extends northw'ards 
to the Volga. On the Island of Corsica it is also met with in 
a w'ild state, and may have been imported at some remote 
period ; but if it is really indigenous there, its range must formerly 
have extended much farther w'est than the counties mentioned 
above. 
There is no record, as far as we know, of its importation to 
the British Islands, but it is mentioned in the bills-of-fare of 
the last Saxon king. 
Habits. — The favourite home of the Pheasant is thick covert, 
woods with plenty of undergrowth, in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of cultivated land, where in the morning and evening the 
birds can come out to feed. Oak, hazel, and fir plantations 
scattered over large parks are much resorted to, for the birds 
seldom stray far from the shelter of the trees, and retire on 
the slightest approach of danger, being decidedly shy and 
retiring in their habits. 
Most of our readers are well acquainted with the Common 
Pheasant in a semi-domesticated state, when it is undoubtedly 
polygamous, one male pairing with many females, but there 
seems to be good reason for believing that this habit has been 
acquired ; for, in a really wild state, all the evidence, though it 
is certainly somewhat scanty, tends to show that this, as well 
as the other species of Fhasianus, is monogamous, the cock 
bird remaining with the female during the period of incubation. 
