68 Practical Game Preserving. 



out the spot where the pheasants are fed, it is useless trying 

 to keep them off ; the only way is to shift the feeding place 

 somewhere else. The pheasant feeders sold are not of much 

 good for preventing wood pigeons and rooks eating the 

 grain, but they possess a virtue in always providing a supply 

 of food in case there are any hungry, perhaps starving, birds 

 in the coverts. The cost of them is not great, and half 

 a dozen or so put about the preserves in winter ought to pay 

 for themselves. 



The question of water in the coverts, or near them, is 

 one of vast importance, and unless the preserver can see 

 his way to having a never failing and plentiful supply plen- 

 tiful in so far as concerns its ubiquity he may as well not 

 try to raise a stock of birds at all. If one cannot arrange for 

 ditches of clear running water, then the best substitute is a 

 large number of properly constructed catchpools, numerous 

 enough, and so formed as to ensure a constant supply. 



The great secret of keeping a head of game and increasing 

 it, is to encourage the birds to remain where they are. You 

 may breed a thousand pheasants annually, and turn them 

 down, but if your coverts do not encourage the birds, there 

 will be no greater head at the end of six years than at 

 starting. Encouragement consists more in careful feeding 

 and attention in winter than anything else. A few arti- 

 chokes, raisins, and similar dainties given once a week, your 

 birds remain. In the absence of dainties, your economical 

 neighbour, with his one keeper, who knows how to encourage 

 birds well, gets all the benefit of your expenditure, and blazes 

 away on the long ( looked-for First, while you and your friends 

 look aghast and anathematise. 



