TlIZ TRUE PHEASANTS. i^ 



^'neh once well on the wing, the Pheasant's flight is extremely 

 rapid, being performed by rapid and incessant beats of the 

 rounded wings, and when coming high, down wind, the pace 

 at which a good "rocketer" can travel is almost incredible. 



During the nesting-season the hen Pheasant has numerous 

 enemies to contend with, the most formidable being the 

 prowling Fox, who seizes her as she sits on her nest, and the 

 Rook and Crows, both Hooded and Carrion, who steal and 

 suck her eggs. A curious instance of the enormous amount of 

 damage done by Crows came under my notice in May, 1893. 



With a friend, I was passing through a Scotch fir plantation 

 forming part of a large estate in the north of Scotland, where 

 thousands of Pheasants are annually reared and turned down. 

 The plantation ran along about a hundred feet above the 

 rocky sea-coast, and as we advanced along the slippery path, 

 we found several sucked Pheasants' eggs, evidently the work 

 of Crows, nor had we gone far before we came suddenly upon 

 a whole family of Hooded rascals, five young and two old 

 birds. In the course of about a quarter of a mile, we counted 

 over a hundred empty shells which had evidently been carried 

 to the path and there devoured. How many more might 

 have been discovered had we searched it is impossible to say, 

 but we saw ample evidence of the wholesale destruction which a 

 family of Crows is capable of committing among Pheasants' 

 eggs. Within two miles of this spot, to his shame be it said, 

 stood a keeper's house, where a thousand young birds were 

 being reared. This worthy informed us that the great heat 

 and drought then prevalent was decimating his broods of 

 young Pheasants, who were dying in scores from a disease 

 which attacks the eyes, and from which few recover. He 

 volunteered the information that he had not been over to the 

 belt of fir wood "for t*his two months," as there was nothing there 

 to take him so far ! A little more attention to the destruction 

 of Hooded Crows in April might have saved a hundred or two 

 ■of strong wild-bred birds for the sport in the fall of the year. 



