PHEASANT, Phasianua, a germs of gallinaceous birds of the family phasianithe; hav ing a rather short strong bill, a little curved; the cheeks.aud skin surrounding the eyes destitute of feathers, and warty; the wings short; the tail long, its feathers so placed as to slope down, roof-like, on either side, the middle feathers longest; the tarsus of the male furnished with a spur. The males of all the species are birds of splendid plumage; • the females have shorter tails and dull or somber colors. There are numerous species, natives of the warm and temperate parts of Asia. The COMMON PHEASANT (P. Col chkus) is said to have been brought from the banks of the Phasis, in Colchis, to the south of Europe, at a very remote period, its introduction being ascribed in classic legend to the Argonauts. From the Phasis it derived its Greek name phasianos, the origin of its name in English and other modern languages. It was soon naturalized in Europe, and is now diffused over almost all the temperate parts of it. The date of its introduc 1 tion into Britain is not known, but was certainly before the end of the 13th c.: it has long been plentiful in plantations and game-preserves, and has been introduced into almost every part of the country suitable to its habits. The abundance of pheasants in Britain, however, is to be ascribed chiefly to careful game-preservation, without which the race would in all probability soon be ,extirpated. No kind of game falls so easy a prey to the poacher.
'A minute description of the common pheasant is unnecessary. The head and neck of the male are steel-blue, reflecting brown, green, and purple in different lights; the back and wings exhibit a fine mixture of orange-red, black, brown, and light yellow; the breast and belly are golden-red: each feather margined with black, and reflecting tints of gold and purple. The whole length of a male pheasant is about 3 ft. of which the tail often measures 2 feet. The entire length of the female is about 2 ft., The general color of the female is pale yellowish-brown, varied with darker brown, the sides of the neck tinged with red and green. The ordinary weight of a pheasant is about 2 pounds and a half; but when pheasants are abundantly supplied with food, and kept undis turbed, they are sometimes 4 pounds or 4 pounds and a half in weight. The pheasant,
unlike the partridge, is polygamous.
The nest of the pheasant is on the ground, and is a heap of leaves and grasses, in which eleven or twelve olive-brown eggs are laid. But in the half-domesticated state in which it exists in many English preserves, the pheasant does not pay that attention to its eggs and young which it does when more wild, and not unfrequently continues to lay eggs for a Considerable time, like the domestic fowl, the eggs being removed by the - gamekeeper, and hatched by liens, along with eggs from nests found among clover and hay in the season of mowing. Very young pheasants must be carefully supplied with ants, eggs, maggots, etc., and the whole •difficulty of rearing them is in their earliest stage. Pheasants feed indiscriminately on berries, seeds, roots, young shoots of plants, worms, insects, etc. Beans, pease, corn, and buckwheat are frequently thrown for them in open places in woods; and they scrape up bulbous and tuberous roots in winter. They roost in trees at no great height from the ground, and poachers sometimes capture them by burning sulphur below them. During the molting season, they do not ascend trees to roost, but spend the night on the ground, when they fall a ready prey to foxes. They are fond of woods with a thick undergrowth, in which. when disturbed, they naturally seek shelter, running whilst it is possible, rather than taking flight. The male pheasant takes flight much more readily than the female. which, apparently trusting to her brown color to escape observation, often remains still until the sportsman is almost upon her. The males and females do not associate together except during the breeding season, but small numbers of one sex are often found in company. The "short crow" of the males begins to be heard in March. In England and Scotland pheasant-shooting legally begins on Oct. 1, and ends on Feb. 3. The pheasants turned out from the game keeper's breeding yard into a preserve, are in general supplied with abundance of food during winter, and conic to the accustomed call as readily as any kind of poultry, so that the sportsmanship of a buitue, in which they are killed by scores or hundreds, is of the lowest kind. It is scarcely necessary to mention that the flesh of the pheasant is in very high esteem for the table.