BRITISH GAME-BIRDS. 



197 



seen in the company of the former. Why pheasants 

 should be considered to be so irresistible is a puzzle : 

 in fact this is not really the case ; if it were, as some 

 would make out, the covers would be decimated. 



A cock pheasant going full bat, with the bright 

 sun of a winter's morning shining on his magnificent 

 plumage, is a fine bit of bird-life as he shoots through 

 the keen bright air full-feathered and strong, his long 

 tail spread out, the two central feathers swaying. 

 He goes like a rocket, no wonder the name of 

 rocketer has been given him. Pheasants are grand 

 birds, the ornaments of the wood and the fields that 

 border them. When the goshawk was used in past 

 times in order to supply the larder, this hawk must 

 have been deadly to the pheasant, for the bird waits 

 either on the fist, or perched on the bough of a tree. 

 Even at the present time, as falconry is reviving, the 

 pheasant feels the fatal grip of that fierce hawk. 



The partridge is familiar to all who live in the 

 country. Every child that toddles after its brothers 

 and sisters of larger growth through the fields and 

 meadows, knows well the call of the partridge, and 

 the whirring flight of the bird. 



