THE PHEASANT 235 



above all that sparrows, yellow-hammers and other grain-eating 

 birds are unable to eat it. Of course, the locations for feeding are 

 where spruce and other straight, horizontally branched conifers of 

 size suitable for roosting are near. Oaks and beech, trees too afford 

 acorns and mast, and are desirable trees to have in a covert : also as 

 undergrowth the bramble, hazel, dogrose, and hawthorn, where, 

 not too much overtopped, they afford natural food for the birds. 

 Thus the pheasant feeds encourage grain-eating birds, and also 

 the frugiverous, the former making sad havoc in cornfields, and the 

 latter in fruit plantations ; and as small woods are preferred to 

 large, the coverts are largely distributed over a district. 



But the pheasants are not allowed to breed naturally, pheasant 

 eggs being too great a temptation, and the birds have so great attrac- 

 tion for foxes that they are taken up for the breeding season. This 

 is done about the beginning of February, as some time is required 

 for them to get over their wildness. Five hens and one cock bird 

 are placed in a pen, and a change of cock from a distance effected 

 if possible. Then there are eggs, say 150 from each pen, and from 

 six pens 900, and so on up to several thousands. Broody hens, not 

 pheasant, but domestic fowls, such as Silver Wyandotte, are employed 

 for incubation and foster-mothers, and from the hatching quarters 

 the hens and young birds are taken to the rearing ground, each hen 

 placed in a coop with a run in front to which the birds are confined 

 for three or four days and then allowed to run on grass. When 

 the birds get too large to enter the coops, these are drawn by 

 degrees towards the coverts, and as the birds are able to fly, some 

 tall branches are placed upright in the ground around the coops as 

 an inducement to roosting. When at their destination they are 

 left on a bare spot, and not finding shelter, fly into the trees to roost. 

 The mistake is not made to turn the half-grown pheasants into the 

 coverts and expect them to shift for themselves, but the birds are 

 fed on soft food until they have their second feathers, and then 

 what do they eat ? the farmer's ripening corn, his peas and beans, 

 his leguminous herbage, his root-crop tops, and even the roots ! Of 

 course, this depends upon circumstances, but under any conditions 

 pheasants are given to straying, and find out crops they like at 

 considerable distance from the covert where they are regularly fed. 



Under the Land Tenure Bill, 1906, tenant farmers may claim 

 compensation for damage by game ; but what does this represent 

 in respect of high cultivation and loss of produce to the nation ? 

 Truly, the steady increase in the number of game licence-holders 

 is gratifying to lovers of the gun. During 1881 there were 57,983 

 game and shooting licences issued in the United Kingdom. In 

 1891 the number had increased to 60,010, an addition during the 

 decade of 2,027. During 1896 there were no fewer than 62,750 

 licences to shoot game issued, showing an increase of 2,700 upon 

 the return of 1891. This also means corresponding increase of 



