FORMATION OF COVERTS, 51 



spruce, either alone or blended with silver firs, and mixing, or 

 not, a few deciduous trees with them, for the special purpose 

 of forming pheasant roosts, have ever been so fully and 

 perspicuously set forth as explained in the previous article. 

 I could quote an instance of extensive coverts having been 

 planted on a similar principle, save that oaks were planted in 

 lieu of birch, with the ultimate view of affording these birds 

 the opportunity of preening their plumes whilst perched on 

 the topmost boughs, and enjoying themselves in this secluded 

 retreat during bright weather, to which luxury, under such 

 circumstances, they are very partial. In these cases the 

 Spanish chesnut tree might sometimes perhaps be found an 

 eligible substitute for either the birch or the oak. The larch 

 undoubtedly is a favourite roosting tree with the pheasant, so 

 much so indeed that I have seen odd ones roosting in larches 

 growing within a few yards only of the impenetrable spruce 

 grove. Besides being horizontal, the branches of the larch 

 are rough, affording good foothold, and when the tree is 

 properly grown are but at short distances one above the 

 other, whilst, the collaterals being numerous, the tree in 

 reality affords far more shelter than it appears capable of 

 yielding, though, of course, far too little to conceal the bird 

 from the prying eye of the night poacher. Pheasants are 

 remarkably fond of ' hips'; and if the wild rose tree which 

 produces them be kept low by a proper attention to pruning, 

 not only can the birds reach the fruit easily, but the branches 

 stool out and afford admirable covert. Cock pheasants are 

 naturally of a vagrant turn, and at times will ' leave their 

 beans and barley,' in order to indulge in this their favourite 

 propensity to rove in search of their natural wild food in the 

 woodlands, hedgerows, &c. Early in December last I received 

 a brace of remarkably fine young cock pheasants shot on a 

 manor where the best artificial food is abundantly provided, 

 yet the crop of one of them contained ten full-sized acorns. 

 Apart, too, from their utility as being by far the warmest, 

 most sheltered, and the only thoroughly poacher-proof night 



E2 



