THE PHEASANT 221 
the Game Laws, it will probably dwindle away in like manner. 
Under existing circumstances, it offers an inducement to poaching 
too tempting to be resisted. Gamekeepers engage in more affrays 
with poachers of Pheasants than of all the other game birds taken 
collectively ; and if the offence of destroying them were made less 
penal than it is at present, they would doubtless diminish rapidly. 
Next to Wood Pigeons, they are said to be the most destructive of 
all British birds ; so that farmers would gladly do their utmost to 
exterminate them ; their large size and steady onward flight com- 
bine to make them an ‘ easy shot’ for the veriest tyro in gunnery, 
while the estimation in which they are held for the table would 
always secure for them a value in the market. 
The places best adapted for Pheasants are thick woods in the 
neighbourhood of water, where there is abundance of shelter on the 
ground, in the shape of furze-bushes, brambles, tall weeds, rushes, 
or tussock grass ; for they pass their lives almost exclusively on the 
ground, even roosting there, except in winter, when they fly up in 
the evening, and perch on the lower boughs of middling-sized trees. 
In April or May, the female bird scratches for herself a shallow hole 
in the ground under the shelter of some bushes or long grass, and 
lays from ten to fourteen eggs; but not unfrequently she allows 
might to prevail over right, and appropriates both the nest and eggs 
belonging to some evicted Partridge. The situation of the nests 
is generally known to the keepers, and all that are considered safe 
are left to be attended to by the owner. Such, however, as are 
exposed to the depredations of vermin or poachers are more fre- 
quently taken, and the eggs are placed under a domestic hen. 
Pheasant chicks are able to run about and pick up their own food 
soon after they have escaped from the egg. This consists of grain, 
seeds, an enormous quantity of wireworms, small insects, especially 
ants and their eggs, and green herbage. When full grown, they add 
to this diet beans, peas, acorns, beech-mast, and the tuberous roots 
of several wild plants. A strip of buck-wheat, of which they are 
very fond, is sometimes sown for their special benefit along the skirt 
ofa plantation. In seasons of scarcity they will enter the farmyard, 
and either quietly feed with the poultry, or, less frequently, do 
battle with the cocks for the sovereignty. A story is told, in the 
Zoologist, of a male Pheasant, which drove from their perch, and 
killed in succession, three fine cocks. The proprietor, with a view 
to prevent further loss, furnished a fourth cock with a pair of steel 
spurs. Armed with these, the lawful occupant was more than a 
match for the aggressor, who, next morning, was found lying dead 
on the ground beneath the perch. Another has been known to 
beat off a cat ; and a third was in the habit of attacking a labouring 
man. The female is a timid, unoffending bird, as peaceful in her 
demeanour as quiet in her garb. The tints of her plumage, far less 
gaudy than in the male, are a protection to her in the nesting season, 
