62 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



does not think of this bird " Hilarion's servant, the 

 sage Crow " as a nervous creature, subject to need- 

 less alarms ; but a few evenings later I was so fortunate 

 as to witness something even more interesting. In 

 this instance a pheasant was the chief actor, a species 

 the field naturalist is apt to look askance at because 

 it is a coddled species and the coddling process has 

 incidentally produced a disastrous effect on our native 

 wild-bird life. Once we rid our minds of these un- 

 fortunate associations we recognize that this stranger 

 in our woods is not only of a splendid appearance, but 

 has that which is infinitely more than fine feathers 

 the intelligent spirit, the mind, that is in a bird. 



On a November evening I came out of the wood to 

 a nice sheltered spot by the side of a dyke fringed with 

 sedges and yellow reeds, and the wide green marsh 

 spread out before me. There are many pheasants in 

 the wood, which are accustomed to feed by day on 

 the marsh or meadow lands ; now I watched them 

 coming in, flying and running, filling the wood with 

 noise as they settled in their roosting-trees, clucking 

 and crowing. In a little while they grew quiet, and 

 I thought that all were at home and abed ; but pre- 

 sently, while sweeping the level green expanse with 

 my glasses, I spied a cock pheasant about two hundred 

 yards out, standing bunched up in a dejected attitude 

 at the side of a dyke and wire fence with a few bramble 

 bushes growing by it. He looked sick, perhaps suffer- 

 ing from the effects of a stray pellet of lead in his body 

 if not from some natural disease. I watched him for 



