72 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



covers the trespasser's eggs : for the eggs of one bird 

 may vary much in shade. The nest is a simple 

 affair, merely a shallow hollow, scratched out, ringed 

 by dry grass or leaves or any dead material of the 

 sort within easy reach ; if dry grass is plentiful a 

 generous supply fringes the hollow, but a pheasant 

 is not one to trouble to fetch and carry for her nest. 

 Cunning as she may be in the choice of a site, no 

 instinct or reason prompts her to go a yard away to 

 collect material, however plentiful at that short dis- 

 tance, for comfort and warmth. Her fabric, plentiful 

 or scanty, is arranged in a typical fashion. Standing 

 in the middle of her scraped-out hollow, she throws the 

 bits of grass or the leaves over her back, so that the 

 margin of the nest corresponds to the size of her body. 

 Sometimes a fowl is seen going through this per- 

 formance ; the goose also employs this primitive 

 instinctive manner of gauging her nest's dimensions. 

 All game-birds lay their eggs on the ground. 

 Though pheasants are peculiarly fond of perching 

 in trees, by day as well as by night, they rarely make 

 a nest off the ground ; though now and again one 

 may see a nest placed a few feet high in a tree, resting 

 on a mattress of ivy or on the ruins of other nests 

 the derelict homes of pigeons, perhaps occupied 

 later by squirrels. Pheasants will also sometimes 

 make use of those convenient hollows to be found 

 on the top of underwood stumps ; and doubtless 

 would do so more often if it were not for the unyield- 

 ing nature of wood, which they cannot scratch into 



