THE PHEASANT 133 



will lay from twelve to fifteen eggs in a good nesting 

 season, but that if allowed to hatch out these themselves 

 a loss of at least fifty per cent, will result before the 

 young birds arrive at maturity. With eggs hatched out 

 under foster-mothers a good pheasant-rearer may under 

 ordinary circumstances be relied upon to bring from 

 seventy to seventy-five per cent, of his young birds to 

 the gun. If not overcrowded, healthy hen pheasants in 

 pens may provide the rearer with something like twenty- 

 five eggs each per season. 



Pheasants are decidedly omnivorous feeders, their 

 dietary taking a remarkably wide range in accordance 

 with the seasons. There are few situations in this 

 country where pheasants would be unable to pick up a 

 living ; in fact, adaptability in this respect, no less than 

 general hardiness, has doubtless greatly contributed to 

 the thorough acclimatization of these birds in a climate 

 so variable as is this of Great Britain. To the pheasant 

 few things come amiss in the way of food, from maize, 

 wheat, or barley, to the eggs of a species of oak-gall 

 fly, or the tough wireworm ; from hazel-nuts, acorns, 

 and berries to field-mice, lizards, and immature vipers. 

 Although taking toll of the farmer's grain fields to some 

 extent there can be no denial of the fact that the 

 pheasant makes handsome return for such damage. 

 One of the benefits conferred by this bird upon the 

 agricultural community is the destruction of wireworms 

 and similar pests of the farm. Hundreds of wireworms, 

 as many as 1200 in one case, have been taken from the 

 crop of a single pheasant, and when it is reflected how 

 much good a few score of these birds, making two such 

 meals per diem, can effect in the way of clearing the 

 turnip or other young crops of these highly-injurious 



