6 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIABIE8. 



with their vegetable incasementj in addition to the earth*-: 

 worms, slugSj &o.j which induce the pheasants to forage, so- 

 industriously, by scratching up the layers of damp leaves 

 in incipient decay which cover the woodland soil in winter. 

 Not only have we found the spangles plentifully in the crops- 

 of pheasants that have been shot, but, on presenting leaves- 

 covered with them to the common and to the gold pheasants 

 in confinement,' we observed the birds to pick them up without- 

 " a moment's hesitation, and to look eagerly for more/^ 



The value of pheasants to the agriculturist is scarcely 

 sufficiently appreciated ; the birds destroy enormous numbers 

 of injurious insects — upwards of twelve hundred wireworms; 

 have been taken out of the crop of a pheasant ; if this number- 

 was consumed at a single meal, the total destroyed must be- 

 almost incredible. There is no doubt that insects are pre- 

 ferred to grain, one pheasant shot at the close of the shooting- 

 season had in its crop 726 wireworms, one acorn, one snail, 

 nine berries, and three grains of wheat. Mr. F. Bond states 

 that he took out of the crop of a pheasant 440 grubs of the- 

 crane fly or daddy longlegs — these larvee are exceedingly 

 destructive to the roots of the grass on lawns and pastures^ 

 As another instance of their insectivorous character may be 

 mentioned the complaint of Waterton, that they had extir- 

 pated the grasshoppers from Walton Park. They also- 

 occasionally eat molluscous animals. Mr. John Bishop, of 

 Llandovery, killed a pheasant on the coast of Islay whose- 

 crop was filled with the coloured snail's shells abounding on 

 the bents or grass stems on the coast. At the meeting of the- 

 British Ornithologists' Club, October 21, 1896, I exhibited 

 some snail shells {Helix nemoralis) of full size, no less than 

 forty-eight of which I had taken out of the crop of a 

 pheasant. 



Lord Lilford, in his beautiful volumes on the "Birds 

 of Northamptonshire," writes: "The pheasant, where not 

 preserved in unreasonable numbers, is a good friend to the- 

 farmer, from the enormous number of wireworms and other- 



