i3o THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



wholly ignorant ofits habits and dietary to be an unmixed 

 evil. It is supposed that in some way Pheasants succeed in 

 providing themselves with a food supply of grain for twelve 

 months in the year ; and I have even read an address by a 

 member of a learned Society to an audience of youthful 

 politicians, in which it was calculated that one Pheasant 

 consumes the equivalent of "five quartern loaves" in grain 

 in a day, which even at pre-War prices would show a 

 Pheasant to cost three times as much to keep for a year as 

 a fat ox. 



In all this there is nothing new. Mankind is always 

 prone to jump to a conclusion, without taking the trouble to 

 secure evidence on the point at issue, or to weigh it if it is 

 tendered. In a pamphlet on the ethics of Game Preservation 

 by the late Mr John Burn Murdoch of Gartincaber, published 

 in 1847, the following extract from a recent East Lothian 

 election address is quoted. " That the owner of land 

 should let his farm to a tenant for the business of hus- 

 bandry, and reserve the right to breed wild animals and 

 feed them on the tenant's crops, is an act so monstrous, 

 that nothing but habit and custom could blind any rational 

 person to its injustice." And if, and so far as, the premises 

 of this candidate for Parliamentary honours are sound 

 had he even confined his argument to the depredations 

 of hares and rabbits I think his conclusions would receive 

 very general assent. But as to whether his premises were 

 or were not sound, I do not suppose he ever paused to 

 enquire. And in truth his position is not less assailable 

 than that of the gamekeeper who kills down Owls and 

 Kestrels because he sees them in the vicinity of his rearing 

 field, or the agriculturist who seeks to benefit his crops by 

 destroying the first bird, and by preference all the birds, he 

 finds in proximity to his fields or garden. 



To show that the usefulness of the Pheasant was not 

 unknown even in 1847, from the same pamphlet the following 

 passage may be quoted. " In the earlier months of winter 

 (November and December) a few weak pickles of grain will 

 still be found in the Pheasant's crop, but the great proportion 

 of its contents consists of leaves and shoots of wild grasses, 



