Practical Game Preserving. 



inhabits the preserves of the British Isles is unmistakeably 

 a denizen of the woods, it is not by any means notable for 

 sharing the characteristics of the winged species, for, in 

 addition to rinding the major portion of its food upon the 

 ground, it builds its nest, except under very exceptional 

 circumstances, always on the earth, while it seems to adopt 

 indiscriminately either the boughs of trees or terra firma as 

 a roosting place. In its natural state, that is in as far as 

 the pheasant has such in these islands, its haunts are always 

 chosen in or in close proximity to woods or plantations, 

 the most favoured being those where thick undergrowth of 

 small bushes, shrubs, bracken, and bramble abound, as it 

 usually does in the woods and plantations of this country, 

 where the underwood, so celebrated a feature of the land- 

 scape, is most conducive to the welfare and contentment of 

 the pheasant. 



This game bird is naturally of a retiring disposition, and, 

 during the daytime, remains concealed, as a rule, somewhere 

 amongst the covert it enjoys. Although individual birds are 

 often seen, the number is exceedingly small. The pheasant 

 generally chooses for its feeding times the periods about 

 sunrise and sunset, at which hours the obtaining of food be- 

 comes a necessary occupation, while during the remainder of 

 the day it may, like other birds, pick up any morsel of 

 provender which may take its fancy. It has, also, certain 

 defined feeding grounds to which it runs. Sometimes they 

 are near to, occasionally distant from, its haunts ; but in any 

 case it adopts a terrestrial, in place of an aerial path, making 

 good use of its legs in preference to flying. In the intervals 

 of feeding the pheasant lies pretty close in the covert or 



