226 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



explore foreign woods, and if they like them, stay 

 away from home. But they may be kept where they 

 should be if pleasantly engaged in feeding. Straw- 

 corn such as rough rakings and damaged sheaves 

 from the tops of ricks which are being threshed 

 not only serves to feed pheasants, but forces them to 

 spend the greater part of their time, which otherwise 

 would be spare time, in searching for each mouthful. 

 One plan is to tie bundles of straw-corn round the 

 fcrunks of trees so that the pheasants must jutnp to 

 peck the ears. The empty straw is piled up again and 

 again for the birds to scratch down ; it is only neces- 

 sary to throw in a little loose grain. Such a minia- 

 ture stack will amuse the birds for hours at a time, 

 and helps to keep them at home. 



Leaves may still cling to the newest growths of under- 

 wood long after the older underwood is gaunt and 



bare. The sap, perhaps, is fresher and 

 The more vigorous in the younger wood pro- 



Leaves longing the period of ripening and the 



new buds have not pushed out far enough 

 to dislodge the leaves. In coppices that have been 

 thinned one sees how unusually big, and how strong 

 and enduring, are the leaves on the shoots of tree- 

 stumps as though the whole energy of what was 

 once a tree is concentrated in the few shoots and 

 leaves. Where hedges are clipped, dead leaves re- 

 main in place far into the winter, possibly because, 



