Richard De Gooyer, age 11, of Salt Lake City., Utah, for his question;

What kind of bird is the pheasant?

Our handsome pheasant is an immigrant from the Orient. His ancestors were brought here, some from Asia by way of Europe and some directly from Asia. He soon made himself at home and is now a permanent resident from coast to coast in the central and northern states and in southern Canada. He does not migrate in winter and the Southland seems too warm for him.

We call our common pheasant the ring‑necked pheasant because the Papa bird is marked with a striking white necklace, above the necklace, his glossy plumage is greenish‑purple. He has black ear tufts and scarlet cheeks. His feathered breast is marked like chain‑mail armor in rich tones of copper, black and deep violet. His back is a blend of taffy browns. His long pointed tail is tan with ladder marks of black and there are a few white feathers in his short sturdy wings.

Papa Pheasant is a handsome fellow and he knows it. When he goes courting he really struts his stuff, making a crowing noise in case he should not be noticed. Mama Pheasant, however, is a modest bird in all respects. She has no long trailing tail like her husband s and she is dressed entirely in drab, mottled brown. Most of her time is spent on the ground where she tries to be invisible.

There is a good reason for this. The pheasant is large for a wild bird, almost as large as a chicken, and the pheasant nest is built on the ground. Mrs. Pheasant tends her chicks all by herself and do©s not wish to call attention to her brood, especially when they are grounded, too young to fly.

 Sometimes the pheasant is called an upland bird, But this does not necessarily menu that he lives on a hill or even on high ground. True, he avoids swamps, river land and marshy ground, His chicken‑type feet are not fitted to walk in the mud. In nature books, the word upland is very often used to contrast with the word shorel and the pheasant might more accurately be called an inland bird, for the water does not appeal to him

The handsome fellow has a wide variety of relatives. His cousins include the gorgeous peacock, the turkey and the grouse. In Asia, he has some pheasant relatives that rate among the most beautiful birds in the world. Yet the order to which these birds belong is not named for any of these glamour boys. It is named Galliformes from the Latin word gallus, meaning chicken. The galliform birds are named for their humble relative, the chicken.

All the birds of this order era plump and sturdy legged. They can sprint for short distances on the ground and they love to scratch for scraps of food in the dirt. None of them, not even the pheasant, are great distance flyers. The young pheasants are taught early to scratch for insects and other bits of food on the ground. Later on they will add cereals and other plant seeds to their diets.