FEEDING IN COVERTS. 33 
three or four in the afternoon, he goes again and deposits in the same way a mixture 
of barley and white peas, concealing the corn as before. In this way I scarcely 
ever lose a grain of corn from intrusion by ‘small depredators.’ | Woodpigeons 
and jays will sometimes intrude; but, with attention in concealing the corn, and 
by adopting punctuality in feeding, you may prevent any waste worth notice. 
Besides, by what I call ‘feeling the pulse’ of your coverts, by observing how 
your birds come up to their food, you easily discover when anything is going wrong, 
as the least disturbance will make pheasants shy, and will be enough to put your 
keeper on the alert to discover the cause.” 
When fed by hand in this manner, a great variety of food may be used. 
Maize is certainly one of the best; weight for weight it is usually much cheaper 
than barley, is better relished by the pheasants, is far more fattening, and it 
possesses the great recommendation of not being so readily devoured by the 
sparrows, especially if the large coarse and cheaper varieties are purchased. A 
correspondent, who has kept pheasants for many years, and taken much trouble 
to ascertain their preference for different kinds of food, states, as the result of 
his experience, that “they prefer maize or Indian corn to any other food 
that can be given to them. I have frequently given the pheasants that come 
regularly to my window to be fed equal parts of Indian corn, peas, small horse- 
beans, wheat, barley, and oats, and they invariably take them in the order in which I 
have written them. I have also frequently done the same with those I keep shut 
up for laying, and always with the same results. Pheasants that I have had from 
elsewhere to put with them in confinement, and that have never seen maize, take 
to it in a couple of days, and then, like the others, will eat nothing else so long 
as they can get it; and if I try them with the mixture above named I find all 
the other grain neglected. The young pheasants at the coops begin to eat it 
before they are as large as partridges, and then entirely neglect the barley, &c. I 
never see pheasants that are kept up in better condition than my own, and they 
have nothing but Indian corn, a few turnip leaves, and clods of turf to pull to 
pieces. Another great advantage of maize is that small birds cannot steal it, with 
the exception of the tomtit, and though almost the smallest he holds the corn 
with one foot and hammers away like a miniature woodpecker, commencing at the 
part of the grain that is attached to the stalk, finding that the only road in. It 
is but a very small part of each corn that he is able to eat, but it seems to 
possess great attraction for him. There are six or eight of these little birds live 
constantly near my house at this season; and though chaffinches, blackbirds, and 
thrushes all try their best at the maize, they soon give it up hopelessly. Rooks 
take it greedily, and were it not for an occasional ball from the air gun they 
would rob the pheasants of every grain.” 
Feeding troughs, which open with the weight of the pheasant when standing 
F 
