A WOOD BY THE SEA 61 



It was a curious thing to have witnessed, for one 

 does not think of this bird — "Hilarion's servant, the 

 sage Crow" — as a nervous creature, subject to need- 

 less alarms ; but a few evenings later I was so fortun- 

 ate as to witness something even more interesting. 

 In this instance a pheasant was the chief actor, a 

 species the field naturalist is apt to look askance at 

 because it is a coddled species and the coddling pro- 

 cess has incidentally produced a disastrous effect 

 on our native wild-bird life. Once we rid our minds 

 of these unfortunate associations we recognise that 

 this stranger in our woods is not only of a splendid 

 appearance, but has that which is infinitely more 

 than fine feathers — the intelligent spirit, the mind, 

 that is in a bird. 



On a November evening I came out of the wood to 

 a nice sheltered spot by the side of a dyke fringed 

 with sedges and yellow reeds, and the wide green 

 marsh spread out before me. There are many phea- 

 sants in the wood, which are accustomed to feed by 

 day on the marsh or meadow lands; now I watched 

 them coming in, flying and running, filling the wood 

 with noise as they settled in their roosting-trees, 

 clucking and crowing. In a little while they grew 

 quiet, and I thought that all were at home and abed; 

 but presently, while sweeping the level green expanse 

 with my glasses, I spied a cock pheasant about two 

 hundred yards out, standing bunched up in a dejected 

 attitude at the side of a dyke and wire fence with a 

 few bramble bushes growing by it. He looked sick, 

 perhaps suffering from the effects of a stray pellet 



