do our sainted women wear their feathers? But such speculations are beyond the province of this work.
Now the feeding goes on apace. All the splendid birds keep scratching backwards in the chaff-heap as do fowls, sending up clouds of it into the air. Like the partridges, too, they utter, from time to time, a variety of curious, low notes, which, unless one were quite near, one would never hear, and once they make a quick little piping sound, all together, standing and lifting up their heads to do it, as though filled with mutual satisfaction and a friendly feeling. The low sounds are of a croodling or clucking character. They are not quite so soft as those of the partridges, and, low as they are, one still catches in them that quality of tone whereof the loud, trumpety notes are made.
I have spoken of the extreme nervousness of the first pheasant. The later arrivals, just as would be the case with men, were not nearly so nervous, though all were wary and circumspect. But now it is most interesting to watch them, and to remark how, in these cautious birds, timidity—or say, rather, a proper and most necessary prudence—is tempered with judgment, and modified by individual character or temperament. They are capable of withstanding the first sudden impulse to flight, and of subjecting it to reason and a more prolonged observation. Thus, when the small birds fly, suddenly, off in a cloud, as they do every few minutes, and with a great whirr of wings, the pheasants all stop feeding, look about, pause a little, seeming to consider, and then recommence, as though they had decided that such panic
