FEEDING IN COVERTS. 57 



condition; but it does not occur to everyone that a good 

 supply of water near their feeding ground has a considerable 

 influence on their habits. After feeding heartily on dry 

 foodj they will stray for water if there be none handy, and 

 will stay away afterwards till hungry again, thus running the 

 risk of being shot during their wanderings. To keep 

 pheasants in their own coverts, take means of making them 

 fond of them, even though there be no water near I have 

 found Jerusalem artichokes the best means of attraction. 

 They are so fond of these tubers that they will hunt them by 

 sight or smell from any obscure corner. Give them also 

 potatoes (small and large), mangold wurtzel, carrots, white- 

 hearted cabbage, and savoys, all of which they will readily 

 eat, and which not only prevent their straying for water, but 

 afford a change of food that is genial and natural to their 

 taste and well-doing, besides economising their dry corn food. 

 Where the coverts abound with acorns, beechmast, Spanish 

 chesnuts, and groundnuts, the pheasant requires but little 

 feeding tiU the middle of December." 



The planting of Jerusalem artichokes on waste spots and 

 coverts will be found to be an exceeding advantageous mode 

 of feeding pheasants and preventing their straying from their 

 own coverts. When once established, these plants readily 

 reproduce themselves and afford a continual amount of food 

 to the birds. For preventing pheasants straying, the use of 

 raisins scattered in the coverts is particularly advantageous. 

 They wiU attract birds even from distant coverts to so great 

 a,n extent that the owners of these latter may have to employ 

 them in their own defence. So attractive are raisins to 

 pheasants that the birds are not unfrequently captured by 

 poachers by means of a fish hook baited with a raisin and 

 suspended about the height of a running bird's head from the 

 ground. 



