14 Practical Game Preserving. 



moreover, offers in its fields, around the hedges and about 

 the lanes, an abundance of green food which may be 

 collected for pheasants penned up, and which they relish. 

 Besides this, boiled potatoes, mangold wurtzel, and even 

 turnip are liked, and often prove singularly acceptable to 

 the birds. 



Acorns are often strongly recommended, but these are far 

 from deserving high esteem as an article of food. Occa- 

 sionally given in very small quantities they are beneficial 

 by way of a tonic. Beech-mast may be given, but not con- 

 tinually or in large quantities. Animal food we strongly 

 object to, and greaves and flesh of any kind are to be avoided. 

 The only thing of the sort worthy of recommendation is 

 occasionally a dead fowl or duck, or the like, buried from six 

 to nine inches deep in the soil of the pen. In the course of 

 time the chrysalides of the maggots will appear on the surface 

 of the ground, and prove a gentle laxative of beneficial 

 character to the pheasants, which eagerly devour them. 

 Some crushed bones or bone meal must occasionally be 

 given as well. Pheasants in pens should always eat all their 

 food, and leave none in the food pans, nor should they be 

 allowed to gorge themselves. At the same time, they should 

 have as much as they want, and no stint made of the food, 

 for which they ought always to be ready. A watchful 

 preserver will soon learn the necessary quantity, and judge 

 the health of his birds by the manner in which they take 

 their daily sustenance. Water must be always obtainable, 

 and, moreover, sweet pure water given in troughs, while, as 

 we said before, if a stream of spring water can be allowed 

 or made even to trickle through the pen, it is a grand gain 



