Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1911 — THE PHEASANT A FRIEND OF THE FARMER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE PHEASANT A FRIEND OF THE FARMER

ONE of the farmers’ bqst friends, the pheasant, has been /long neglected by American agriculturalists, but the movement for a widespread introduction of the valuable bird into the United States is rapidly gaining ground as the pre-eminent merits of the pheasant are recognized. It is matchless as a destroyer of insect pests and as a game bird it rivals the native American species. As it can easily be reared in captivity and can be kept seml-domesticlzed in the vicinity in it is reared, it will prove in many ways a valuable aid to the farmer, i » The pheasant is naturally an insectivorous bird. The variety of the insect food, of the pheasant is larger than any other bird, so far as known. Investigation’', shows that over 130 varieties of Insects, including earthworms, are ehten by' this bird, and doubtless many more will be added to the list on further investigation. The pheasant is especially fond of small rodents, such as field mice, young gophers and sipall snakes. In England a number of pheasants have been found choked to death in an attempt to swallow worms larger or longer than they could manage, and pheasants also have been found dead, choked to death on small rodents. The keepers of large pheasantries have seen pheasants catch mice that were stealing grain from the birds. This is verified by Fred Barnett, superintendent of thfe pheasantries at City Park, Denver, Col. Mr. Barnett says pheasant hen will catch and destroy a mouse as quickly as a cock pheasant or a cat, as he has frequently watched them in the act. They usually pick the head off first, then tear and eat the body or swallow the small ones whole. Among the insects destroyed by the pheasant are included ill-smelling bugs, that most birds will not touch, making these birds more valuable to the farmer than any other. Among the pests ravenously caught by the pheasant are the potato beetle, the squash bug, the cucumber beetle, the bean leaf beetle, tomato worms, cut worms and the moth which deposit the eggs for the wire worms. The pheasant also digs for and eats the wireworms. Most birds avoid the potato beetle asd other ill-smelling bugs on account of their obnoxious odors. The southern people are Importing the pheasant to fight the cotton boll weevil and its larvae, and it is ( said that one pheasant will eat as many of the destructive pests as a number of, quail. Many of the insects that are injurious to the corn crop are destroyed by the pheasant, and the bird will not attack the grain or ear of the corn until late in the season, after insect food is scarce. The professors of our agricultural colleges state that the chinch bug, which destroys SIOO,000,000 worth of wheat annually, is hunted, and eaten by the pheasant, both in summer and in winter. The difference between the pheasant and the ordinary fowl in eating insects is largely that the pheasant Is constantly hunting for the eggs and larvae of Insects, in the grain fields and meadows, where the insect eggs are usually laid on the underside of the leaves of the plants.

Pheasants like grasshopper eggs, especially those erf the locust, which deposits its eggs in the earth in dry places, and pheasants in captivity have been known to dig up light ground in the search jfor insect eggs and larvae. The “common pheasant" of the books, is, scientifically, Phaslanus colchicus, and it is him that we call the “blackneck." * That is a good and distinctive title, because the bird that has made him a rara avis in our coverts, has ousted him and absorbed him by crossing, is the bird with the white ring around his neck—the ring-necked pheasant, or Phaslanus torquatus.

The Japanese pheasant, conspicu -ous fort the dark green breast of th« male, 1b not, according to the spec! mens seen by the present writer, as, large a bird as the English natives; but it Is a curious thing with regard to all these pheasants that there is a tendency, which seems to be constant, for a cross between any two species or varieties to be vary much larger than either of the original parent stocks. This was the case with the crosses of the colchicus and torquatus in the .first 'place; and it was found again, as soon as the crossing took place between the versicolor and either of the older-established kinds, that the hybrids were bigger and stronger than either parent stock. Be this said—“either parent stock” —rather than either parent, because it is a no less constant tendency in this family of birds that the hens shall be considerably smaller as well as far less conspicuous of plumage than the cocks. Nesting as they do on the ground, it is almost an essential for the survival of their race that the par ent which does the brooding of the eggs should be of a hue likely to escape the notice of its foes. It was not until after the. Japanese pheasant had been tried and found not altogether an improvement, even in its crosses, on older kinds, for the purposes of covert-shooting, that experiment was made with that variety which certainly is the best of all, and is certainly in its crosses with* the colchicus and torquatus a better bird than of those of pure breed. This Is the Mongolian.

In it* pure state the cock is a splendid bird, with its' general look of dark green \gloss over the plumage, variegated on the sides with a rich red. Its broad white collar and the white on its wings are very conspicuous on the dark ground. The lady is a very modest companion of this magnificent lord. In all there are something like sixty species of true pheasants, to say nothing of several allied birds which are often called by that name. It is evident, therefore, that this brief notice is very far from exhausting the subject, and that a long time before that consummation was reached there would be absolute exhaustion of the patience of the reader.