184 PHEASANT. 



leaves the Wood-Pigeons to hollow them out. On the other 

 hand, he is very fond of grubs, wire-worms, and insects of all 

 kinds, particularly ants and their eggs, and the spangles and galls 

 upon oak-leaves. Mr. Waterton found that his Pheasants destroyed 

 all the grasshoppers in his park ; and Mr. Tegetmeier states that 

 upwards of 1,200 wire-worms have been taken out of the crop of a 

 single hen Pheasant. They eat an immense number of ripe 

 seeds of weeds, such as corn-spurrey, cow-wheat, polygonum grasses, 

 sedges, hemp-nettles, &c. They are fond of beech-nuts, sweet 

 chestnuts, acorns, and berries of all kinds ; blackberries, mistletoe- 

 berries, elder-berries, and gooseberries, and currants when they 

 have a chance of getting them. They will pick hips, haws, and 

 sloes from the hedges, and attack apples and pears in the orchards. 

 In the spring they will eat the bulbous roots of the buttercup, 

 Ranu?icuhis bulbosus, the celandine Ficaria ve7'?m, and the roots of 

 silverweed, Potentiila anserina. Like fowls, also, they are sometimes 

 carnivorous, and will eat frogs, slow-worms and field-mice ; and 

 with all their food, at all seasons, they take numerous small 

 fragments of stones and gravel. 



To keep Pheasants from straying in autumn, few methods are 

 more effective, it is said, than to sow some neighbouring patch of 

 ground with a mixture of beans, peas, and buckwheat, and leave 

 the crop on the ground — a plan that gives them food and shelter at 

 the same time. An adjoining patch of fern makes them still more 

 at home, awaiting the sportsman. 



And from the brake 

 Rush forth the whirring Pheasant high in air ; 

 He waves his varied plumes, stretching away 

 With hasty wing. 



SoMERVlLLE— i^VeW Sports. 



The hen Pheasant in old age is apt to assume more or less ot 

 the plumage of the cock bird, and some curious specimens have 

 been killed in this county, and may be seen in private collections. 



Herefordshire is admirably suited to the habits of the Pheasant. 

 Its wooded hills and dales, and its numerous springs and streams, 

 amply supply the essential requisites for the bird. Numerous 



