Fancy Pheasants

On exhibit at the New York Poultry Show in Manhattan last week were a 42-Ib. turkey, a "talking goose'' which performed on the NBC Children's Hour. Jimmy Walker paid $500 for a pair of Blue Azore chickens to take down to his new farm on Long Island. An addled architect wrung the neck of a prize gamecock, tried to make off with it under his coat. But the prime news of this annual gathering of fowl fanciers, the biggest in 23 years, was its display of the largest number of ornamental pheasants ever exhibited at a U. S. show.

Few years ago fancy pheasants were as rare in the U. S. as the four-volume mono graph on Pheasants, Their Lives and Homes-by William Beebe, published in 1918-22 at $250 per set and now a collec tor's item at $750. Brilliantly-plumed birds could be seen on the lawns of ty coons like Bethlehem Steel's Eugene Grace, but to most citizens a pheasant was only a long-tailed wild bird useful for sport and food. Now Naturalist Beebe's definitive work has been re-issued in one volume at $3.50* and pheasant raising has become a fad among rich rural connoisseurs. With only five pairs entered in last year's Poultry Show, a handful of fanciers organized an Ornamental Pheasant Society, set out to advertise their pastime. Chosen president was Philip Morgan ("Phil") Plant, onetime Manhattan playboy and second husband of Constance Bennett, who settled down few years ago to breed bantams and pheasants on his 2,000-acre farm in Waterford, Conn. Vice President was Frank ("Bring 'Em Back Alive") Buck. Last week the Society had some 100 members, exhibited 41 pairs of birds.

Ornamental pheasants, which bear a resemblance to their gamebird cousins, are native to most of Asia and parts of the East Indies. Chief export centres are Singapore and Calcutta. Prices range from $10 or $15 per pair for common Goldens or Lady Amhersts to $250 for a pair of rare, shimmering blue-green-gold-copper-crimson Impeyans. Except for a few jungle varieties, the birds are hardy, need nothing in the way of quarters but a brush pile and windbreak.

Last week "Phil" Plant and his second wife put their special floating trailer aboard ship in Manhattan, set sail for Africa to collect ostriches and wart hogs for the American Museum of Natural History. But pheasants from the Plant collection of 3,000, one of the largest in the East, were among the Nepal Kaleeges, Blue Manchurians, Cheers, Versicolors and Impeyans which graced the Poultry Show. "They're just to look at," explains Fancier Plant. "They might replace peacocks that people keep in penthouses. They're like a miniature peacock, but they're more dainty. There are 56 varieties. Hell, there are only five or six kinds of peacocks."

* Doubleday, Doran.

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