. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. 332 USEFUL BIRDS. PHEASANTS. Pheasants are closely related to the Pea Fowl and the Domestic Cock. They are natives of Asia, but several species have been introduced into England and America. Ring-necked Pheasant. Phasianus torquatus. Length. — Varying according to length of tail, but reaching three feet. Adult Male. — Head and neck dark, burnished blue, with ref
. Useful birds and their protection. Containing brief descriptions of the more common and useful species of Massachusetts, with accounts of their food habits, and a chapter on the means of attracting and protecting birds. Birds; Birds. 332 USEFUL BIRDS. PHEASANTS. Pheasants are closely related to the Pea Fowl and the Domestic Cock. They are natives of Asia, but several species have been introduced into England and America. Ring-necked Pheasant. Phasianus torquatus. Length. — Varying according to length of tail, but reaching three feet. Adult Male. — Head and neck dark, burnished blue, with reflections of other shades; a, white ring around neck; back orange-brown to reddish, with black and other variegations; breast coppery-chestnut, with purplish edgings and some greenish gloss; tail olive-brown, with red-purplish edgings, and crossed with blackish bars; bare skin of head scarlet. Adult Female. — Smaller; tail shorter, and general plumage brown, marked with blackish. Young. — Similar to female. Nest. — On ground. Eggs. — Similar to those of a small domestic fowl. Season. — Resident. The King-neck was first imported into Oregon from China, and was introduced into Massachusetts from the Pacific coast in 1894 by the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and Game, who have since propa- gated the birds and liberated them in various parts of the State. It was brought to this country under the name of Mongolian Pheasant, but is quite distinct from that species, to which it has only a general likeness. When its acclimatization here was proposed, I wrote the late John Fannin, then curator of the Provincial Museum of British Columbia, inquiring whether the Pheasants which had been introduced there had proved injurious to native birds or farm crops. He replied that on Vancouver Island, where Pheasants were then numerous, they had driven the Grouse to the woods ; but that this did little harm, as Grouse were naturally wood birds, while the Pheasants were birds
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