6 PHEASANTS FOR COVEBTS AND AVIARIES. 



covered with tLem to tlie common and to the gold pheasants 

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

 a moment's l^esitation, 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, records that he killed a pheasant on the coast of 

 Islay whose crop was filled with the coloured snails abounding 

 on the bents or grass stems on the coast. 



Lord Lilford, in his magnificent 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 

 noxious insects which it devours, to say nothing of its liking 

 for the roots of various weeds; but it would be absurd to 

 deny that grain forms its favourite food, and a field of 

 standing beans will, as is well known, draw pheasants for 

 miles. It is very much the fashion to feed the birds with 

 maize ; but, in our own opinion, the flesh of pheasants which 

 have been principally fed upon this corn is very far inferior in 

 flavour to that of those who have found their own living 

 upon what the land may offer them." 



Like their allies, the domestic fowls, pheasants are occa- 



