BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 333 
In 1897 Mr. F. H. Mosher confined two adult birds at 
Malden. They were given some choice of food, and were 
fond of grain, weed seeds, vegetables, fruit, and insects. 
They ate seventy full-grown gipsy moth caterpillars in half 
aday. Within another half day they ate one hundred and 
eight egg-bearing female gipsy moths. No young birds 
could be secured for experiment. 
In 1903 complaints began to come in that Pheasants were 
injuring crops and killing game birds. Circulars sent out 
to three hundred correspondents in different parts of the 
State brought replies regarding these birds from over two 
hundred people. A considerable number of correspondents 
had never heard of the species in their vicinity. Forty-two 
stated that the bird was not then present in their sections. 
Thirty asserted either that it was very rare in their vicinity 
or had disappeared. Pheasants were reported as numer- 
ous only near Winchester, where the State pheasantry was 
located, in a few other places where they were being bred, 
and in portions of Essex County, where they had an oppor- 
tunity to breed on large estates on which no gunning was 
allowed. Forty-five persons stated that Pheasants were 
doing no injury to crops or game birds. Three persons com- 
plained that Pheasants were killing Bob-whites and Ruffed 
Grouse; and nine asserted that Pheasants were injuring 
crops, principally corn, tomatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, and 
potatoes. Practically all these complaints came from those 
few sections where the birds were becoming numerous. 
Pheasants have taken more of my sprouting corn than have 
either Crows or squirrels. They do not pull it up, as the 
Crows do, but dig it up with the beak. In other localities 
they are said to “pull more corn than the Crows.” In the 
fall they eat what corn they can reach from the ground, and 
in Wareham they are said to dig “bushels” of potatoes. 
The evidence regarding the killing of game birds was 
merely circumstantial. Several reputable persons asserted 
that since Pheasants had become common they had found 
“both Partridges and Quail with their heads pecked open.” 
Other birds of these species were said to have borne evi- 
dence of having been slain in combat with a larger bird. 
