FOOD OF TEE PHEASANT. 



"In our own country," says Macgillivray, "its favourite 

 places of resort are thick plantations, or tangled woods by 

 streams, where, among the long grass, brambles, and other 

 shrubs, it passes the night, sleeping on the ground in summer 

 and autumn, but commonly roosting in the trees in the 

 winter." 



Like the domestic fowl, which it closely resembles in its 

 internal structure and its habits, the pheasant is an 

 omnivorous feeder ; grain, herbage, roots, berries, and other 

 small fruits, insects, acorns, beech mast, are alike acceptable 

 to it. Naumann gives the following detailed description of 

 its dietary on the Continent. "Its food consists of grain, 

 seeds, fruits, and berries, with green herbs, insects, and 

 worms, varying with the time of year. Ants, and particularly 

 their larvae, are a favourite food, the latter forming the chief 

 support of the young. It also eats many green weeds, the 

 tender shoots of grass, cabbage, young clover, wild cress, 

 pimpernel, young peas, &c., &c. Of berries : the wild 

 mezereum [Daphne mezereum), wild strawberries [Fragaria) , 

 currants, elderberries from the species Samiucus racemosa, 

 S. nigra, and S. ehulus ; blackberries {Ruhus caesius, B. idseus, 

 and R. fruiticosus) ; mistletoe {ViscuTn album) j hawthorn 

 [Oratsegus torminalis). Plums, apples, and pears it eats 

 readily, and cherries, mulberries, and grapes it also takes 

 when it can get them. In the autumn, ripe seeds are its 

 chief food, it eats those of many of the sedges and grasses, 

 and of several species of Polygonum, as P. dumetorum ; black 

 bindweed (P. convolvulus) ; knot grass (P. aviculare) ; and 

 also those of the cow- wheat (Melampyrum) ; and acorns, 

 beech mast, &c., form a large portion of its food in the latter 

 months of the year. Amongst forest plants, it Kkes the seeds 

 of the hemp-nettle [Galeopsis), and it also feeds on almost all 

 the seeds that the farmer sows." 



To this long catalogue of its continental fare may be 

 added the roots of the common silver weed {Potentilla 

 anserina), and those of the pig-nut or earth-nut (Buni/um 



B 2 



