Pheasants Natural History. 



employ various artifices in order to disguise its whereabouts 

 from winged or running vermin, by running some distance to 

 or from it, always approaching or leaving it in a different 

 direction. The hatching season extends from the latter half 

 of May to the middle of July. As soon as the young are 

 from twelve to twenty-four hours out of the shell the hen leads 

 them forth, and the process of rearing into close considera- 

 tion of which there is no need to enter is diligently carried 

 on. If undisturbed, the hen pheasant adopts a particular spot 

 in the neighbourhood of which the young are kept for some 

 time, and as soon as strong enough they are introduced to the 

 mysteries of the hedgerows, and, later on, to the stubbles. 

 Should the brood suffer one or two successive disturbances 

 they are speedily led to the wood or covert, whence they 

 issue only at feeding time. By the middle of September 

 the youngsters are full grown, when, having moulted off their 

 fledgeling garb, they don that of the adult bird, and sally 

 forth rejoicing in their own importance, unconscious of the 

 direful October work in which they are destined to take so 

 prominent and unenviable a part. 



The natural food of the pheasant is of great variety, and 

 consists during the first part of the year mainly of plants of 

 a succulent nature, roots of various kinds, and an innumerable 

 quantity of insects of multifarious sorts. During autumn 

 and winter it is, perforce, obliged to vary its diet with 

 beech-mast, hazel nuts, hips and haws, the red fruit 

 of the wild rose, any description of corn obtainable, 

 besides the seeds of a quantity of plants as multifarious as 

 the insects it consumes in summer, spring, and a portion 

 of the autumn. 



