FEEDING IN COVERTS. 59 



but this may be done in* a wrong as well as a right manner. 

 The late Mr. W. Lort, an enthusiastic practical sportsman, 

 made the following suggestions : " Pheasants may be easily 

 fed from small thatched stacks made with bundles of different 

 kinds of grain. The only operation then required pulling a 

 bundle or two from the stack and cutting the bands may be 

 performed every two or three days ; though, by the way, I 

 must say I like someone to see my pheasants every day, and 

 those who want game will find it to their interest to have it 

 well attended to. If weight and bulk are objects, a foot or 

 two of the straw can be cut from each sheaf or bundle of corn 

 before it is taken to the stacks. The ears should be put 

 inside, or half the corn will be taken by small birds ; and the 

 bottom of the stack should stand at least a foot from the 

 ground. I use as food in winter peas, beans, barley, buck- 

 wheat, wheat, and a few oats, and many other little delicacies, 

 such as boiled potatoes, ground artichokes, decayed apples, 

 damaged raisins, &c. ; and with all these dainties, they will 

 stray twice in the year when the acorns fall, and at or just 

 before breeding-time." 



The following most complete series of suggestions on 

 feeding pheasants in coverts is from the pen of Mr. James 

 Barnes, of Exmouth. It is specially valuable as giving 

 practical directions for the formation of catchpools for water, 

 without which no amount of feeding will keep pheasants from 

 straying in dry weather ; and it also contains suggestions for 

 the formation of huts, which are worthy of the careful con- 

 sideration of every preserver on a large scale. Mr. Barnes 

 writes : '' Pheasants are well-known to require assistance 

 with food of some kind in winter to keep them in good 

 condition, and to have a propensity to ramble away and 

 expose themselves to the depredations of trespassers. Buck- 

 wheat should be sown adjacent to their coverts, cut when 

 ripe and intermixed with barley, also in straw, and placed in 

 little stacks in or near their coverts, and spread or shaken 

 about at intervals throughout the winter. What is still 



