March brings the gallant cock pheasant to his courting days. He knows
that he is safe from men and guns, and stands recklessly within easy
gunshot, a figure of defiance. Should he step away he lifts his feet
with a pompous and disdainful air. He keeps a sharp eye on the hen
pheasants of the wood: the time is near when he will be the sultan of
half a score of hens; that is, if he remains at large in the woods.
If confined in the keeper's pens, the number of wives is sternly
regulated, and five, or at the most seven, are allowed to him. It is
curious that in captivity the number of the cock pheasant's hens must
be kept down, whereas the mallard, who pairs when wild, will cheerfully
accept a polygamous state, and will faithfully husband two or three
ducks if kept in a pen.
When partridges are penned up for a few months in the breeding season,
on the French system of rearing, they remain faithful to their rule of
pairing. Keepers have found that it is useless to try to regulate the
partridge courtships: the birds must be left to their own instincts
in choosing mates. It will not do to put any cock and hen together
and expect them to pair. The hen is quite as particular in accepting a
mate as the cock in selecting one for his attentions. Sometimes a hen
wins the hearts of several suitors, and then there will be fighting,
the strongest securing the prize, the defeated contentedly pairing off
with the less sought-for hens. When a partridge betrothal has been
ratified, the happy pair announce the fact to their friends by keeping
sedulously together, apart from the other occupants of the general pen.
The partridge is seldom quarrelsome: in a wild state a cock bird will
go far afield in search of a mate if he cannot find one peaceably in
his usual haunts--or he may make up his mind to go through the season
unwedded. Sometimes, but rarely, it will happen that trouble arises
through an amorous cock partridge losing his mate late in the nesting
season and trying to run away with another's wife. But while some
partridges show a pugnacious temperament, as they boast no spurs, like
cock pheasants, their duels mostly take the form of chasing and running.
* * * * *