THE PHEASANT 
rivalry between pheasant and fox, or (as I 
rather suspect) between those who shoot 
the one and hunt the other, admits of only 
one ansu er. The fox eats the pheasant ; the 
pheasant is eaten by the fox. This not very 
complex proposition may read like an excerpt 
from a French grammar, but it is the epitome 
of the whole argument. It is just possible 
we have no actual evidence to go on 
that under such wholly natural conditions 
as survive nowhere in rural England the two 
might flourish side by side, the fox taking 
occasional toll of its agreeably flavoured 
neighbours, and the latter, we may suppose, 
their wits sharpened by adversity, gradually 
devising means of keeping out of the robber's 
reach. In the artificial environment of a 
hunting or shooting country, however, the fox 
will always prove too much for a bird dulled by 
much protection, and the only possible modus 
vivendi between those concerned must rest on 
a policy of give and take that deliberately 
ignores the facts of the case. 
More interesting, on academic grounds at 
any rate, is the process of education notice- 
able in pheasants in parts of the country 
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