CHAPTER VII. PHEASANTS. 



PROTECTION. 



IT is only when a head of game is actually raised that the 

 duties peculiar to the preserver commence, and it 

 depends, to a very large extent, upon his assiduity in pro- 

 tecting his property, whether his stock be maintained and 

 increased, or whether it gradually dwindle away. This is 

 more especially the case with pheasants. The inducements 

 offered on all sides to poachers are many, and the ease with 

 which the birds can be obtained, coupled with the oppor- 

 tunities their habits offer for attacks by vermin, combine to 

 render the pheasant the most easily abstracted and most 

 difficult of protection of all our game birds. Hence the 

 vicinity of towns becomes fertile in the production of 

 poachers. The man " in pursuit," moreover, is singularly 

 ingenious and endowed with many resources ; and it would 

 be difficult to collect, within the present limits, a complete 

 list of the various modes in use of poaching pheasants, 

 some of which can be learnt only from the gentlemen 

 who employ them. There would, furthermore, be no gain 

 in noting them down in precise terms, and it must be left, 



