34 MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN PEESERVES. 



on an attached bar in front of the corn, are not extensively used. The objections 

 to them are, in the first place, their expense, some fifteen shillings to thirty 

 shUHngs each, which becomes a serious item when many are required ; their liability 

 to get out of order ; and, lastly,, the unlimited supply they afford to the feeding 

 bird, which crams itself to repletion without any exercise, and is disinclined to 

 seek food on its own account. 



Unquestionably, the best mode of feeding pheasants is by the use of small 

 stacks of unthreshed grain or beans ; but even this may be done in a wrong as 

 weU as a right manner. My friend, Mr. W. Lort, an enthusiastic practical 

 sportsman, makes the following suggestions : " Pheasants may be easily fed from 

 small thatched stacks made with bundles of different kinds of grain. The only 

 operation then required — pulling a bundle or two from the stack and cutting 

 the bands — may be performed' every two or three days ; though, by the way, I 

 must say I Kke someone to see my pheasants every day ; and those who want 

 game will find it to their interest to have it well attended to. If weight and 

 bulk are objects, a foot or two of the straw cstn be cut from each sheaf or bundle 

 of corn before it is taken to the stacks. The ears should be put inside, or half 

 the corn wUl be taken by small birds; and the bottom of the stack should stand 

 at least a foot from the ground. I use as food in winter peas, beans, barley, 

 buckwheat, wheat, and a few oats, and many other little delicacies, such as boiled 

 potatoes, ground artichokes, decayed apples, damaged raisins, &c. ; and, with all 

 these dainties, they will stray twice in the year — when the acorns fall, and at or 

 just before breeding- time." 



The following most complete series of suggestions on feeding pheasants in 

 coverts is from the pen of Mr. James ■ Barnes, of Exmouth. It is especially 

 valuable as giving practical directions for the formation of catchpools for water, 

 without which no amount of feeding will keep pheasants from straying in dry 

 weather ; and it also contains suggestions for the formation of huts, which are 

 worthy of the careful consideration of every preserver on a large scale. Mr. 

 Barnes writes : — " Pheasants are well known to require assistance with food of 

 some kind in winter to keep them in good condition, and to have a propensity to 

 ramble away and expose themselves to the depredations of trespassers. Buckwheat 

 should be sown adjacent to their coverts, cut when ripe and intermixed with 

 barley, also in straw, and placed in little stacks in or near their coverts, and 

 spread or shaken about at intervals throughout the winter. What is still better 

 to my mind, is to place their food in huts. A pheasant hut is an open shed, 

 with the roof fixed on four posts, with a pole all round for rafter plate, the 

 rafters of rough poles tied on with withies, thatched first with long faggots tied 

 up with three or four withies of brushwood with all the leaves on, and allowed 

 to hang down or over the rafter plate two feet or thereabouts. The thatch used 



