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 diminisli 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 t( > 

 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 

 of a 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 law^ful 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. 



