76 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



favourite that appears to be dozing so innocently by the fire 

 is most probably under the influence of fatigue caused by a 

 hard night's hunting in the plantations. How different also 

 in her manner is a cat when at home and when detected 

 prowling after the game. In the first of the two cases she is 

 tame and accessible to any little attentions ; in the latter she 

 seems to know she is doing wrong, and scampers off home as 

 hard as she can go. Luckily there is no animal more easily 

 taken in a trap, if common cai*e be used in setting," but box 

 traps with drop doors open at both ends, are much the most 

 efficacious, as the victims, whether cats, dogs, rats, and even 

 foxes walk into them without suspicion, and, treading on the 

 treadle in the middle, cause both doors to fall simultaneously, 

 when the animal is secured unharmed, and may either be 

 liberated or shot into a sack and drowned. 



Laying poisoned meat is now illegal, and the sale of arsenic 

 to private persons interdicted by statute ; nevertheless I 

 would caution any one against the use of that drug, as the 

 employment of it is attended with much cruelty, as it is 

 immediately rejected by vomiting, but not before it has laid 

 the foundation of a violent and painful inflammation of the 

 stomach, from which the animal suffers for weeks, but rarely 

 dies. If it is absolutely necessary to use poison for cats, a 

 little carbonate of baryta, mixed up with the soft roe of a red 

 herring, is the most certain and speedy that can be employed, 

 but a good keeper should know how to keep his preserves 

 clear of vermin without the aid of poison. 



Hedgehogs are undoubtedly destructive to eggs as well as 

 to the young birds, and should be trapped in coverts in which 

 pheasants are reared. 



Among the other enemies to young pheasants that attack 

 them occasionally may be mentioned adders, and even farm- 

 yard ducks that have gained access to the coops. 



