REARED PHEASANTS 105 



kept in coops placed in a warm, sunny pasture or grassy place. 

 Here they are carefully fed, tended and protected. In due course 

 the birds pass from the rearing ground to the woods, probably 

 instinctively to secure relative seclusion by day and position for 

 perching at night. In most cases the young birds are " led " to, 

 or even " turned-down " in, certain desirable situations for feeding, 

 roosting and dispersing. Thus hundreds and thousands of young 

 pheasants are relegated from the rearing grounds in August to 

 thickets, plantations and woods in order to acquire a certain degree 

 of wildness, whence they make incursions into fields and naturally 

 feed on the suitable crops therein. The food of pheasants consists 

 of grain, soft herbage, roots and insects; therefore their devasta- 

 tion amongst cultivated crops will be relative to their number, 

 presence of crops upon which they feed, and the hand-feeding prac- 

 tised in order to keep them from obtaining food for themselves. 



Wild pheasants the naturally reared are so few that they 

 may be said to do little injury to cultivated crops, while they cer- 

 tainly do some good by devouring insects which otherwise would 

 feed upon vegetation. 



Hand-reared pheasants, popularly termed " tame," do not 

 materially prejudice agricultural crops where the woods are large and 

 the adjacent land is in grass, so that hand-feeding is imperative; 

 therefore the rearing and preserving of the birds practically affects 

 no one but the proprietor. Where, on the other hand, the preserves 

 are adjacent to fields of rotation grasses, clovers, roots and cereals, 

 there will be damage more or less to the crops, keepers under 

 such circumstances not exercising much care in feeding in the coverts ; 

 indeed, the pheasants themselves prefer to roam and forage for the 

 food they require, especially that not supplied in grain -feeding, 

 while keepers favour the straying of pheasants in the late summer 

 and autumn to fields in the respective domains in view of their being- 

 found in thick hedgerows, thickets or belts on shooting-days while 

 the trees in woods are in leafage. 



On estates, where the shooting is let, the rearing of pheasants 

 often means letting them loose in August to feed on the farmer's 

 grain and other crops. The farmer has derived no benefit from the 

 insect-devouring proclivities of the birds whilst they were young., 

 or only over a very restricted area, of which he often is not tenant, 

 and the only compensating circumstances are relative immunity 

 of the poultry yard and dovecote from preying animals and birds, 

 and is discounted by an increase of devouring rodents. 



In pleasure grounds where pheasants are often preserved, and 

 are great ornaments, little harm is done by them, though at 

 times they make great havoc by unearthing bulbs, such as tulips, 

 for feeding upon them, and by scratching and dusting, generally 

 in the wrong place, interfering with the order of well-kept grounds. 

 Even the young birds reared in pens at side of grassy glades and 



