Hazel Nuts and Spangles. 5 



of stone. He also records that in the spring the yellow 

 flowers of the pilewort [Banunculus ficaria) are always eaten 

 in large quantity, as are the tuberous roots of the common 

 silver weed {Potentilla anserina), when they are turned up by 

 cultivation. Mr. Thompson adds : " While spending the 

 month of January, 1849, at the sporting quarters of 

 Ardimersy Cottage, Island of Islay, where pheasants are 

 abundant and attain a very large size — the ring-necked 

 variety, too, being common — I observed that these birds, in 

 the outer or wilder coverts, feed, during mild as well as 

 severe weather, almost wholly on hazel nuts. In the first 

 bird that was remarked to contain them, they were reckoned, 

 and found to be twenty-four in number, all of full size and 

 perfect ; in addition were many large insect larvae. Either 

 oats or Indian corn being thrown out every morning before 

 the windows of the cottage for pheasants, I had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing their great preference of the former to 

 the latter. I remarked a pheasant one day in Islay taking 

 the sparrow's place, by picking at horsedung on the road for 

 undigested oats." 



Among the more singular articles of food that form part 

 of the pheasant's very varied dietary may be mentioned the 

 spangles of the oak so common in the autumn on the under 

 sides of the leaves. These galls are caused by the presence 

 of the eggs of a gall-fly {Neuroterus lenticuJaris), which may 

 be reared from the spangles if they are collected in the 

 autumn, and kept in a cool and rather moist atmosphere 

 during the winter. About the fall of the leaf these spangles 

 begin to lose their flat mushroom-like form and red hirsute 

 appearance, and become by degrees raised or bossed towards 

 the middle, in consequence of the growth of the enclosed 

 grub, which now becomes visible when the spangle is cut 

 open. The perfect insect makes its appearance in April and 

 May. Some years since, Mr. E. Carr Ellison pubhshed the 

 following account of their being eagerly sought and devoured 

 by pheasants in a wild state : " Just before the fall of the 



