THE PHEASANT 53 



safely across. In another, a cock was seen to cross the Usk. Alarmed 

 by a fisherman, "he quietly took to the water like a duck, and, 

 swimming high and with great ease, reached the bank nearly opposite 

 to the spot whence he set out." The stream at this point was running 

 at the rate of about four knots an hour. 



Bearing these facts in mind, it is obvious that the pheasant is 

 a bird whose hold on life, as a species, is dependent on the stability 

 of its food-supply. Any marked change in the conditions of its 

 immediate environment must spell extinction, migration being 

 impossible. Under the circumstances it is not surprising to find that 

 the pheasant is an omnivorous feeder. The seeds of weeds, young 

 clover, grass, roots, especially of the ranunculus, peas, beans, wild 

 fruits and berries of all kinds, acorns, and beech-mast, form their 

 staple diet, while animal food is furnished by ants and their larva?, 

 wire-worms, grubs of the crane-fly, caterpillars even of the hairy 

 species, and other insects, snails, and slugs and worms. They have, 

 however, discovered sources of supply in the nature of animal food 

 which are not generally known. Thus, as was discovered some years 

 ago by Mr. Carr Ellison, 1 in the autumn they search greedily for the 

 fallen spangles of the oak, which contain the larva? of the gall-fly 

 (Neurotrerus lenticularis). To these may be added the slow-worm, the 

 viper, field-voles, and mice. 



So readily, indeed, is food obtainable, that were it not for its 

 enemies it is certain the pheasant would become flightless. But both 

 in a wild state, and in the state of semi-domestication in which it lives 

 in these islands, it has many enemies, of whom, in this country at any 

 rate, man himself is chief, even while he sternly represses all other 

 agents of destruction. Among its foes, after man, are, or rather 

 perhaps were, foxes, cats, and other carnivores, rats, birds of prey, 

 and egg - eating birds like jays, magpies, and the rest of the Crow 

 family. The avoidance of these is the factor which has driven it to 

 roost in trees, and on the part of individuals, perhaps, to nest in trees, 



1 Tegetmeier, On Pheasants, p. 18. 



