Pheasants General Management, &>c. 67 



cravings of other birds. It must be remembered that the 

 pheasant has a natural aptitude for scratching in the ground 

 for a portion of its food, while the majority of other birds 

 have no such instinct. If, therefore, we provide a floor which 

 may hide the food, and be easily scraped back by the game 

 birds, we shall be right. Having chosen the feeding site, the 

 recommendations for which we have already specified, the 

 proper plan is, when the regular winter feeding is first 

 commenced, to carry out some oats and barley in the sheaf, 

 and spread this about at the feeding place. Thence make 

 some lures of chaff, containing a few grains of corn, the lures 

 to radiate for some distance through the covert from the 

 feeding place. The intelligent preserver will soon discover 

 if pheasants have found out the source of a food supply, and 

 can then daily carry the allowance of grain, mixed with 

 its quantum of chaff, to the feeding spot, and scatter it round, 

 so managing matters that as soon as one portion of the straw, 

 &c., becomes sodden, another expanse may be chosen, and 

 the offending matter removed or heaped up. In this manner 

 any kind of grain can be given, and we should determine 

 on maize and beans as the staple food. There is no 

 doubt that in maize we have as fine and suitable a pheasant 

 food as there is. The best kinds are the flat American 

 " mixed maize," and the coarser sorts of Black Sea maize, 

 Danube, Bourgas, or Poti corn. By all birds, except rooks 

 and wood pigeons, these sorts of maize are practically 

 unconsumable, but the sombre rook and the wily cushat 

 are a terrible pair, and for persistent and audacious gor- 

 mandising on food spread for pheasants, deserve all the 

 opprobrium bestowed on them by keepers. Once they find 



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