188



G. H. Edwards—Pheasants



The bird here shown is a cock, the hen is similar, but has no black

throat and the head is strongly washed with bronzy yellow, but has

no pale yellow on forehead, and sides of the head—the beak is brown.

This most lovely little bird is not too easy to keep in good condition—

it has a chattering and rather shrill note which it utters when nervous

or alarmed, but I have heard it sing a very sweet song. It is very

rare in captivity.


N. W. T.



PHEASANTS


By Geo. Hampden Edwards

(Continued from page 103 )


III


THE MISTY BEGINNING—EVOLUTION AND DISTRIBUTION—

ALWAYS OF TERRESTRIAL HABIT?


Given the choice of a day to be lived in the world of yesteryear*

when the first systems of complex life cells had left the seas and were

adapting themselves to Land, or a sojourn to see what the world be

like in the to-morrow of a million years, then to return to present-day

life ... I would ask to go to the Past, if only to see and wonder at

the plasmodic beginnings of birds.


The scientists have pulled aside the curtains of the Past so that

we can look back, but the mists of time still and always blur the vision,,

so that we shall always be without the real story of how birds began..

Reptilian in appearance they no doubt were, and, in the first instance,,

featherless and flightless. Then, possibly, they learnt to glide, and then,,

bat-like, to fly on web-skinned forelegs.


From some such creatures, our beautiful Pheasants have evolved,,

and when one considers the many different species of Pheasants, the

marvel of it all is truly bewildering.


Whatever their early beginning may have been, it would seem,

that the species—distinct as they may be as a group—can reasonably

be connected up with other groups, and one can very well visualize

the changes brought by time that have created species out of a group.



