62 PHEASANTS 



in the same wood, and has so far never 

 been over the guns. Probably most 

 pheasants, if they met their end in no 

 other way, would die of old age a year or 

 so under twenty. 



The food of the pheasant is varied in 

 its nature, the staple diet at different 

 seasons of the year being given in this 

 brief summary : — 



Insects and other small animals. Ants and 

 their larvae; grasshoppers; many small beetles 

 (including the destructive heather -beetle — 

 Lochmaea suturalis) ; the larvae of many flies such 

 as the well-known wire- worms and skip-jacks; 

 caterpillars, snails and slugs. 



It is worthy of note that all the thirty species 

 of insects scheduled by the Board of Agriculture 

 as specially noxious to farm and garden are freely 

 eaten by the pheasant. 



Green Herbs. The tender shoots of many 

 grasses and sedges, cabbage, young clover, wild 

 cress, pimpernel, young peas, besides couch grass 

 and other noxious weeds. The flowers of tulips, 

 crocuses, daffodils and buttercups. 



Bulbous Roots. Pig-nuts, buttercup and lesser 

 celandine tubers, common silverweed, wild arum, 

 young potatoes, Jerusalem artichoke, roots of 

 wood anemone ; occasionally turnips. 



