120 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



less, though he is always glad when his birds take 

 to roosting out of the reach of vermin, especially 

 of foxes tame or wild. 



Given a fair chance young pheasants soon learn 

 to go to a perch to sleep. Where one sets a good 

 example, others quickly follow. We remember a 

 partridge that was reared with pheasants, and learned 

 to go with them regularly to roost. Five-weeks-old 

 pheasants will flutter up to roost on the first night 

 after removal to covert. It is less difficult to induce 

 them to seek a perch than to break them of the habit 

 of sleeping on the ground. Pheasants have an eye 

 rather for comfortable sleeping quarters than safe 

 ones. Many a keeper has suffered heavy loss from 

 putting his birds in a covert with a thick grassy 

 undergrowth, or within reach of a field of rough grass, 

 or a young plantation with a thick growth of rank 

 herbage and attractive weeds. There the fox is 

 most likely to come. 



Ideal quarters for the birds, when the time comes 

 to shift them from the rearing-field to the coverts, is 

 ground bare of brambles, fern, and grass, where oak 

 saplings throw out horizontal branches not too 

 thick a few feet from the ground. With his young 

 birds in such a place, the keeper may lie on his bed 

 in peace and thankfulness to dream of the harvest 

 of his toil, a harvest which needs but a fine November 

 day and straight powder to be garnered in abundance. 

 Where the ground is unfavourable the keeper will 

 try to teach his birds the roosting habit ; one plan 



