Hans Stefani—Eared Pheasants



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to them every jerk of the carriers; fed in a defective way and contrary to

their nature, exposed to the alternations of heat and cold, exhausted and

weakened, only a portion reach their preliminary goal, a Chinese port,

alive. There they first of all require to be looked after for weeks in order

to regain some strength, and being reinvigorated, to start on the second

part of their journey, a sea voyage of almost 20,000 km., which brings

them to a French port, from where, finally, after a further railway

journey of se veral days, they reach their final destination, the enclosure

of an aviculturist. The danger that after such enormous strain, they

carry in them a disease germ and soon succumb to it, is of course

very great, and one can only breathe freely and call his birds one’s

own, if they are still safe and sound one or two months after their

arrival.


The Blue Crossoptilon presumably reached Europe for the first time

alive a few years ago. In the year 1929 a French fancier imported

twenty of these birds, among which, however, there was only one single

hen, which unfortunately, a few weeks after its arrival on European

soil, perished. Therefore only cocks were left, which were used for

crossing with Brown Crossoptilons. Unfortunately, the resulting hybrids

were then quite falsely offered as Blue Eared Pheasants, so that we shall

soon have similar unsatisfactory conditions to record with the Blue

Crossoptilon as have existed for about eighty years through the crossing

of Amherst and Gold Pheasants. As is known, Lady Amherst, a hundred

years ago, imported into Europe two cocks of this species of Pheasant

which were named after her. Some decades later also, first of all, only

cocks arrived here, which, in consequence of the lack of hens of the

same breed, were crossed with the closely allied Gold Pheasants, so

that nowadays, unfortunately, we have far more of the crossbreed

than pure-bred Amherst Pheasants.


The Blue X Brown hybrids offered as Blues are, however, easily

recognizable. They have not the clear colour of the blue birds, but

a blue-black, which appears of a dirty colour. Anyone who is acquainted

with pure-bred Blue Crossoptilon will not confuse the blue-brown

hybrids with them.


The Blue Crossoptilon is quite differently marked to the Brown.

In the case of the blue species the body and also the back, in its whole



