PHEASANT 



Ph 



asianus co 



ICUS 



T is hardly correct to call the Pheasant an indigenous bird 

 in the British Islands. The date of its introduction to 

 this country is unknown, though it is supposed to have 

 been introduced by the Romans. It is distributed where- 

 ever there is sufficient cover to protect it, and may be 

 found in a semi-domesticated state in most districts 

 throughout the British Islands. 



The favourite haunts of the Pheasant are among the woods and plantations 

 adjoining well-cultivated lands, where it can leave the shelter of the under- 

 growth in the early morning and evening to feed, ready to run back into 

 the cover on the slightest alarm. It is essentially a ground bird, and will 

 trust to its powers of running for safety, only taking to its wings as a last 

 resource, though if repeatedly disturbed it will seek refuge in some tree. At 

 cover shoots, where the birds have been frequently shot at, I have often 

 seen Pheasants fly quietly up into some thick fir-tree, from which no amount 

 of shouting or beating the tree with sticks would dislodge them. 



The food of the Pheasant is composed of insects, worms, grain, small 

 seeds, and berries, especially elderberries and blackberries. In the autumn 

 they devour immense quantities of acorns and beech-mast. During the 

 winter they subsist chiefly on the artificial food spread for them by the 

 gamekeepers, the birds from the outlying plantations collecting where the 

 food is put down. At this season of the year they often become almost 

 as tame as barn-door fowls, picking up the Indian corn and damaged raisins 

 at the keeper's feet. 



In the British Islands the Pheasant is polygamous, probably on account 

 of the inequality in numbers of the sexes, far more cocks being killed in the 

 shooting-season than hens. Most of the Pheasants found in our Islands at 

 VOL. in. 2 G 113 



