In my work on the birds of Asia will be found a full account of the two birds mentioned as having been
recently introduced into the British Islands, namely P . versicolor from Japan, and P . torquatusfrom Southern
China, together with several other species of this beautiful group o f birds, respecting which it is Only
necessary to mention here that they nearly all inhabit the northern part o f that great land-section o f the
globe called Asia, and that none of them ar e found in India.
Of all the true Pheasants the P . colchicus in a pure state is the darkest in colour, and may be always
recognized by the deep chestnut hue o f its rump, a dark green stripe over each eye; and the uniform redness
of its flank-feathers; the Chinese P . torquatus is conspicuous for the light silvery green mark over each eye,
the glaucous green of its rump, and the light buff colouring of its flank-feathers; while the Japanese bird, with
its splendid green breast and sides, differs materially from both. The birds usually shot in our woods exhibit
an intermixture of all these tints and markings, no two being precisely alike.
As an evidence that the same colours in cross-bred birds cannot be perpetuated I append two notes which
I find among my MSS. bearing upon this point.
“ Burdett, the clever keeper o f the Earl o f Craven, informs me that a Pheasant which had a narrow ring
round its neck the first year had a very broad one during the second, and that in the third it had totally
disappeared. ‘ I am positive of this,’ he says, ‘ as it was never taken out of the pen in which it was kept.’ ”
“ M r. J . H. Gurney bred some extremely beautiful first-cross birds between a Green Pheasant, obtained at
the Earl o f Derby’s sale, and the species common in his woods a t North Repps, in Norfolk; and although
they appeared to be extremely healthy, and some of them exceeding four pounds in weight, the race could
not be perpetuated, Mr. Gurney assuring me that after an interval o f a few years there was no strain o f the
green bird left.”
On this head too, Mr. Stevenson, in his ‘Birds of Norfolk,’ has the following p a s s a g e “ From personal
observation and inquiry, however, during the last two or three years, it appears th at evidences o f this cross,
even in the coverts where these hybrids were most plentiful, are now scarcely perceptible, the strong characteristics
of the. Chinese bird apparently absorbing all the less-marked, though darker, tints o f the Japanese.
One o f these birds, killed in 1853, weighed upwards o f four and a half pounds; and many examples which
were stuffed for the beauty of their plumage will be found in the collections o f our county gentlemen.”
The accompanying illustration represents an old and true Phasianus colchicus, which has met with a fate
to which hundreds o f its brethren are annually subjected.