180 PHEASAXT. 



The cock Pheasant deserts the hen as soon as the eggs are 

 laid, and she alone has the rearing of the young. 



When fed in hard weather, they learn to come at the call 

 of the keeper. The hen will sometimes hatch her eggs in 

 confinement. They are foolish birds, and one has been known 

 to 'run farther into the danger, than try to get out of it, 

 and await its fate with patient stupidity, without the least 

 attempt to extricate itself.' 



The male Pheasant is polygamous, having from six to nine 

 mates. Its natural habits confine it to the ground, and there 

 it roosts in the summer and autumn, among long grass or 

 bushes; but in the winter commonly in trees at a height of 

 ten or twenty feet from the ground ; in the . early spring the 

 hen roosts near the cock, either in the same tree or in some 

 one close to it, whose shelter it also seeks at other times if 

 alarmed. In the early part of the winter open trees are resorted 

 to, but in more severe weather, those of an evergreen kind 

 hollies and firs. In strictly preserved places, they often derive 

 boldness from conscious security, and display but very little 

 fear of man. 



Its flight is straight, laboured, and heavy, performed by 

 quick flappings of the wings; the tail expanded: in descending, 

 it steadies its wings and sails before alighting. A considerable 

 sound is made by its first rising. They run very fast on 

 occasion, and if alarmed, either speed into the nearest cover 

 or take wing. If not disturbed, but feeding quietly, they 

 move about leisurely, running every now and then, the wings 

 rather drooped, and the tail nearly straight, but rather more 

 elevated than at other times. 



It feeds on cereal grain of the various kinds, and beans, 

 beech-mast, chesnuts, acorns, blackberries, sloes, hips and haws, 

 and other small wild fruits; also the shoots and leaves of 

 various plants, turnip tops, and grass, the roots of the golden 

 buttercup, and of various grasses and bulbous plants; worms, 

 grasshoppers, gnats, and other insects. It does a large 

 amount of damage in its consumption of the first-named: 

 where there are ant-hills, the hen bird leads her young to 

 them, in the grass-fields, and afterwards into those of corn. 

 Mr. Macgillivray found a quantity of a species of fern in 

 one. If they come into a garden, they devour grapes, 

 potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and turnips, and scratch the 

 ground in search of food. They are particularly fond of 

 sunflower seeds and buckwheat. 



