Some, too fragile for winter winds
The thoughtful grave encloses-
Tenderly tucking them in from frost
Before their feet are cold.
Never the treasures in her nest
The cautious grave exposes,
Building where schoolboy dare not look,
And sportsman is not bold.
The covert have all the children
Early aged and often cold,
Sparrows, unnoticed by the Father-
Lambs for whom time had not a fold. Emily Dickinson.....1859
(Glad we made this trade with China, back in 1881.)
On March 13, 1881, around 60 Chinese ring-necked pheasants arrive in Port Townsend aboard the ship Otago. United States consul general Owen Nickerson Denny (1838-1900) and his wife Gertrude Jane Hall Denny (1837-1933) have shipped the pheasants, along with other Chinese birds and plants, from Shanghai in hopes of establishing a population in their home state of Oregon. Most of the pheasants succumb as they are transported from the Olympic Peninsula to Portland. A few survivors are released on the lower Columbia River, but accounts differ as to whether this population survives. However, the Dennys ship more pheasants in 1882 and 1884, successfully introducing ring-necked pheasants into Oregon's Willamette Valley and on Protection Island in Jefferson County near Port Townsend. The colorful game birds prove prolific and popular. Ring-necked pheasants spread throughout Oregon and Washington and are introduced in states across the country, becoming so common that they seem more a native species than one first established in the United States in 1881.
