PHEASANT. 251 



a great deal of trouble is taken by the keepers to rear 

 the birds and preserve them through the winter, 

 otherwise a large number would perish annually 

 through the severity of the climate and the insuf- 

 ficiency of proper food. If left to themselves to breed, 

 many of the young birds perish through the dampness 

 of the ground at nights and other causes, so that in 

 April and May we find keepers scouring the copses 

 and undergrowth in all directions for Pheasants' eggs. 

 Around us, in Hampshire, farm hands and others are 

 paid a shilling a nest for every one they give information 

 about to a keeper, provided the nest is found on their 

 farm land, and not in a place where they have been 

 trespassing to search for it. The eggs are taken by the 

 keeper and placed under domestic hens, and the young 

 are reared in coops with the foster-mother, exactly like 

 ordinary chicks. Many thousands are reared around 

 us in this way, and the result is that the young 

 Pheasants become quite tame, coming to the keeper's 

 call for their food; and when the shooting season 

 commences the birds are shot down in great numbers, 

 until the sound of the gun and the sight of the dogs 

 teach them to become wary and shy. The keeper's 

 " pheasantry " — if I may coin a word — is an interest- 

 ing place with its numbers of coops and hundreds of 

 little birds running about in front of them, and the 

 old foster-mothers within clucking and displaying all 

 the anxiety that they do with a brood of their own 

 species. Numbers^ however, are of course never 

 found by the keepers and take their chance in the 

 open. 



The haunts of the Pheasant are the covers and 

 copses in the well-wooded parts of our islands. They 

 are shy birds by nature, and do not care for the open. 



