FORMATION OF COVERTS. 47 



attractive to the marauders. It also bears being removed 

 large from tbe uursery, with very little injury or check to its 

 growth. Consequently^ large plants of it, with earth adhering, 

 though somewhat costly, are well worth their price to the 

 planter who knows where and how to use them. Around 

 these, and nearer to the tall pines and spruces, may be tried 

 plants of the holly-leaved berberis and common laurel, which 

 may not improbably succeed. Immediately under the pines 

 and spruces it is useless to plant anything. The onl}' covert 

 to be obtained there is from heaps of branches left upon the 

 ground as often as the trees are thinned. And this should 

 be done almost annually, to ensure plenty of room to the best 

 and most thriving amongst them, whose side branches will 

 then gradually become more or less pendulous, and so will 

 afford far more shelter than could be obtained from a larger 

 number of trees standing too thick. Pheasants in a covert 

 like this need no great quantity of shelter upon the ground, 

 for they sit, even during the daytime, chiefly in the tree-tops. 

 They bask there, on the south side of the summit of a spruce 

 or pine, in the sun's rays, with great delight; and in heavy 

 snow-storms whole days will often pass when they never 

 descend to feed, but prefer to sit quiet, eating the green 

 spines of these resinous trees (in the manner of the black 

 grouse and capercailzie) when crispened by the frost, and 

 depending upon snow by way of beverage. I have strongly 

 advocated the spruce and silver firs as affording the most 

 tempting perch to the birds at nightfall ; still, be it under- 

 stood, that the Scotch pine, pinaster, Weymouth pine 

 (P. laricio) and others are all excellent. All that is needed is 

 a little generalship and foresight in pheasant preservers, 

 and a determination to confide in these resources, rather than 

 in the expensive, dangerous, and inefficient practice of 

 employing night watchers.^' 



Commenting on these suggestions, another correspondent 

 writes : " I am not aware that the practical advantages and 

 excellence of the plan of planting large clumps or squares of 



