ASYLUM FOR PHEASANTS. 183 



prospective legislation has nothing whatever to do 

 with the subject of the present chapter. Even in 

 an ornithological point of view the pheasant is a 

 most interesting bird. There is many a walled 

 and wooded park, to which he is now a stranger, 

 where he might be easily introduced and estab- 

 lished, simply by providing him with suitable food 

 and secure places of retreat and concealment at 

 all seasons of the year, almost without having 

 recourse to the modern system of preservation, or 

 the intervention of keepers and game laws. 



During a delightful visit which I paid lately to 

 Mr. Waterton, at Walton Hall ; among the thou- 

 sand objects of interest that crowd upon the 

 attention of the naturalist, I had the gratification 

 of seeing an asylum for pheasants planted about 

 twenty years ago, and which now appears to be 

 the very beau ideal of everything that could be 

 wished for in that way. Local circumstances 

 indeed, over which he had no control, induced 

 him some years since to relinquish the preserva- 

 tion of those birds on his property, but I re- 

 joiced to learn from him that it is his intention 

 shortly to introduce a sufficient number to add 

 to the interest of a scene that already possesses 

 so many ornithological attractions, and to occupy 

 a spot where, as soon as they have arrived 

 at years of discretion, they may equally laugh 



