COVERTS FOB PHEASANTS. 43 



pheasants, and not one of them is visible to the keenest eye in 

 the clearest moonlight. It consists of spruce and silver fir, 

 regularly and unsparingly thinned to keep the trees in health 

 and vigour. We never think of night watching, even though 

 guns be heard on adjoining estates, and the poachers have 

 long given us up in despair. This lesser stronghold is kept 

 sacred from the guns of sportsmen, who are sure to find the 

 cock pheasants dispersed through all the other plantations 

 during the daytime. The first thing the birds do on a winter's 

 morning, after pecking up a few beans near their roost, is to 

 wander in search of their natural wild food in the woodlands, 

 of which food the tuberous root of the celandine, or wood- 

 ranunculus, forms here a principal part. But, besides the 

 remains of acorns and beech-nuts, they feed, I believe, much 

 on the fallen keys of the ash and sycamore, on hips and haws, 

 and on tender blades of grass, besides innumerable worms, 

 eggs of slugs, and larvas of insects. Tempted by these 

 dainties, and in frosty weather even by the crisp green 

 leaves of the holly, the cock pheasant will leave his beans 

 and barley, and betake himself to freer haunts every fine 

 day, and there the sportsman will find him ; but, if his life 

 be spared, he seldom fails to return at night to his warm 

 roost among the spruces, only with the advance of spring 

 will he quit it; for habit has made him luxurious as to his 

 nights' quarters, and more sensitive of cold than less lucky 

 pheasants. 



"The Scotch pine is not nearly so tempting to the 

 pheasant at night as the spruce and silver firs, because its 

 branches are not sufficiently horizontal ; yet, on dry hungry 

 soils, it must be largely intermixed, since the firs are not to be 

 depended on to flourish on such ground. In some cases, a 

 stronghold may be formed entirely of hollies, Portugal laurels, 

 and yews. For hen pheasants it will be excellent ; but the 

 cocks, which prefer to roost higher, should have a few firs or 

 pines close at hand for their accommodation. All food should 

 be given in or near to these secure nocturnal retreats.' 



