COMMON PHEASANT. 
295 
ample evidence of the wholesale destruction which a family of 
Crows is capable of committing among Pheasants eggs. 
Within two miles of this spot, to his shame be it said, stood a 
keeper’s house, where a thousand young birds were being 
reared. 'Ihis worthy informed us that the great heat and 
drought then prevalent was decimating his broods of young 
Pheasants, who were dying in scores from a disease which 
attacks the eyes, and from which few recover. He volunteered 
the information that he had not been over to the belt of fir 
wood “ for this two months,” as there was nothing there to take 
him so far ! A little more attention to the destruction ol 
Hooded Crows in April might have saved a hundred or 
two of strong wild-bred birds for the sport in the fall of the 
year. . 
Female Pheasants that have become barren either from agt 
or through disease of the ovary, generally assume the plumage 
of the cock to a greater or less extent, and we have known a 
number of instances in which the male plumage had been so 
perfectly donned, that it was only by the smaller size, blunt 
spurs, and much shorter tail, that the true sex of the individual 
could be ascertained. Last year I examined a hen pheasant 
in perfectly normal plumage, but with a well-developed sharp 
spur on each leg ; this bird, on dissection, was found to have 
been shot in the left ovary, a No. 2 or 3 shot being there 
imbedded, which had destroyed the organ, and given rise to an 
ugly tumorous growth. The wound was evidently an old 
standing one, but in this instance the plumage had remained 
normal. . , , - , 
The Common Pheasant not only crosses with other species ot 
its own kind, but hybrids are occasionally produced between 
it and the Black Game, Domestic Fowl, and Guinea Fowl, 
while instances are on record of hybrids between Pheasant 
and Capercailzie. 
Albinos and piebald birds are by no means an uncommon 
occurrence among our semi-domesticated birds, but no doubt 
much rarer among really wild individuals. 
Uest. A mere hollow in the ground, roughly lined with dead 
leaves, and carefully hidden from view by dead fern, brambles, 
or coarse grass or other herbage. 
