8 PRACTICAL PHEASANT REARING. 



our nesting excursion, in so far as to remark that, 

 should a full nest be discovered handy to a road 

 or public pathway (and it is extraordinary what a 

 predilection both the pheasant and partridge have 

 for depositing their eggs in these open and most 

 unsafe localities, exposed to the practical eye of the 

 egg-stealer and the mischievous ringers of the school- 

 boy), it had best be taken home at once, " Safe bind 

 safe find " being the proverb for the occasion ; and 

 the chances are that the improvident old lady, the 

 mother, when she has got over her first loss, may 

 choose a more remote and safer hiding place for her 

 next essay. 



It is a somewhat curious fact that the pheasant 

 which, during the autumn and winter months, makes 

 a point of never roosting upon the ground, but chooses 

 for his or her nocturnal abode any tree having a nice 

 comfortable straight bough to offer as an inducement 

 to " put up for the night," should, when the nesting 

 season is coming on, all of a sudden change habits 

 and seek a roost on the ground, forsaking that favorite 

 larch tree, upon which the noble breast is so much 

 more visible to the poacher, owing to the lack of 

 foliage, or scarcity of plumage, as I suppose the bird 

 would put it were he consulted, than upon almost any 

 other " ornament to the forest." What a pity it is 

 that the spruce tree, which offers almost absolute 

 immunity from the wiles of the night prowler should 

 hold but a second place in the estimation of this 



