36 MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN PRESERVES. 
catchpools made where natural gravel abounds, namely, to make it into concxete and 
case the bottom and sides with this only. It answers well, and saves the labour and 
expense of getting bricks from a distance. Every feeder knows that dry barley and 
buckwheat in sheaf, and stacked in the vicinity of the preserves, and some pulled 
out and shaken about occasionally, with a change of maize, will keep the pheasants 
in good condition; but it does not occur to everyone that a good supply of water 
near their feeding ground has a considerable influence on their habits. After feeding 
heartily on dry food, they will stray for water if there be none handy, and will 
stay away afterwards till hungry again, thus running the risk of being shot during 
their wanderings. To keep pheasants in their own coverts, take means of making 
them fond of them, even though there be no water near I have found Jerusalem 
artichokes the best means of attraction. They are so fond of these tubers that they 
will hunt them by sight or smell from any obscure corner. Give them also 
potatoes (small and large), mangold wurtzel, carrots, white-hearted cabbage, and 
savoys, all of which they will readily eat, and which not only prevent their straying 
for water, but afford a change of food that is genial and natural to their taste and 
well-doing, besides economising their dry corn food: Where the coverts abound 
with acorns, beechmast, Spanish chesnuts, and groundnuts, the pheasant requires but 
little feeding till the middle of December.” 
The vignette represents the head of a starling with an extreme prolongation 
of the lower jaw: it is in singular contrast to the abnormal head figured at the 
end of the last chapter. 
