6 PHEASANTS FOB COVEBTS AND AVIARIES. 



witli their ve^'etaLle inca^emeat, in addition to tlie earth- 

 ■\vonns, .slash's, &c., which induce the plieasants to forage S(.) 

 industriously, by scra,tcliing up the layers of damp leaves 

 in incipient decay which cover the woodland soil in winter. 

 Not (inlv have we found the s])atigles plentifully in the crops 

 of jiheasants that have been shot, Ijut, on presenting leaves 

 covered with them to the common and to the gold pheasants 

 in confinement, we observed the liirds to pick them up without 

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



The value of pheasaiits t(.i the agriculturist is scarcely 

 sufficiently appreciated; the birds (festroy enormous numbers 

 of injurious insects — upwards of twelve hundred wireworms 

 have lieen 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 72(3 wireworms, one acorn, 

 (ine snail, nine Ijerries, and three grains (.)f wheat. Mr. F. 

 ])ond once took out of the crop of a pheasant 44u grubs of the 

 crane fly or daddy longlegs — these larvje are exceedingly 

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

 As another instance of their insectivor(nis character mav be 

 mentioned the complaint (jf Watorton, that they had extir- 

 pated the grasshoppers from Walton Park. The\' also 

 occasionally eat molluscous animals. ilr. J (dm Bishop, of 

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

 crop was tilled with the coloured snail's .shells abounding on 

 the bents or gra,ss stems on the coast. At the meeting of the 

 13ritish Ornithologists' Club, (.)ctober 21, 18'.»ti, I exhibited 

 some snail shells (llfllx nrDinrtiU^i) of full size, no fewer than 

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

 pheasant. 



Lord Lilford, in his beautiful work on the " P>irds 

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

 preserved in unreasonable numbers, is a good friend to the 

 farmer, from the enormous nnraljcr of wireworms ami other 



