G. H. Edwards—Pheasants



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firearms to use against them, and white “ sportsmen ” find pleasure

in hunting down and shooting rare birds. In this connection, flight

is the undoing of pheasants.


It is possible that Pheasants are only beginning (measured in terms

of thousands of years) to learn to fly. It is likely that their earlier

enemies were aerial ones, mainly, though they have many terrestrial

ones. They are surely a match for the latter of these, as they can slip

away like shadows—melting into nothingness, be it over a barren

plain, rocky ground, or forest land. True, they will fly up if suddenly

frightened, but they do so, generally, with so much voluble protest

and noise that one might be pardoned for concluding that it is a newer

form of progression, rather than a temporary reversion to their original

manner of escape.


If a deep-rooted instinct prompted them to rise at sudden danger

would not that same instinct silence them as they obeyed the urge of

their almost forgotten capabilities ? Compare this with the silence

and swift stealth by which they speed to safety under cover of boulder,

fern, or herbage generally ; taking advantage of every possible cover

with the same infallibility as if they had prearranged the course to

be taken, with minute detail.


These remarks do not apply to all Pheasants, but then, are all

Pheasants in fact Pheasants ?


The Great Linking-up


True Pheasant—the group known as Phasianus —and the Golden

Pheasants— Chrysolophus pictus, and C. amher sties ; the Cheer, Catreus

wallichii —whose peculiar environment alone may account for its being

so dissimilar from any other group in its call, eggs, etc.—and the group

Syrmaticus ; may well be sprung from a closely related, or identical

stock. In one direction we have the Blood Pheasants, Tragopans, and

Impeyans ; Crossoptilons (Eared-Pheasants), and then the Swinhoe

and other Kaleeges, which can be linked with the Junglefowl (and so to

our domestic poultry) by no great stretch of the imagination.


In another direction we have that curious group of Pheasants

Polyplectron —the Peacock Pheasants—which form a link with Pigeons.

A group of two species Chalcurus, the Bronze-tailed Peacock Pheasants,



