4 Natural History. 



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

 beech-mast, etc., form a large portion of its food in the latter 

 months of the year. Amongst forest plants it likes 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 silver weed (Potentilla anserina), and 

 those of the pig-nut or earth-nut {Buniumflexuosum), and the 

 tubers of the common buttercups (Ranunculus bulhosus and 

 R.ficaria), which are often scratched out of the soil and eaten. 

 Macgillivray states that " One of the most remarkable facts 

 relative to this bird that has come under my observation was 

 the presence of a very large quantity of the fronds of the 

 common polypody (Polypodium vulgare) in the crop of one 

 which I opened in the winter of 1835. I am not aware that 

 any species of fern has ever been found constituting part of 

 the food of a ruminating quadruped or gallinaceous bird ; and 

 if it should be found by experiment that the pheasant 

 thrives on such substances, advantage might be taken of the 

 circumstance." Macgillivray, however, wrote before the 

 pubhcation of the Eeport of the Grouse Disease Inquiry Com- 

 mittee, in which (pp. 85 and 91 of " The Grouse in Health 

 and in Disease ") it is stated that grouse will feed on the 

 fronds of bracken. Mr. W. E. Downing, in a letter written 

 in 1922, remarks that on a moor in Cheshire where there is 

 little heather he opened the crops of grouse and found them 

 filled with bracken. 



Thompson in his " Natural History of Ireland " recounts 

 the different varieties of food he observed in opening the 

 crops of ten pheasants — from November to April inclusive. 

 In seven he discovered the fruit of the hawthorn, with grain,, 

 small seeds, and peas. In one no less than thirty-seven 

 acorns. Another had its crop nearly filled with grass ; only 

 one contained any insects, the period of examination being 

 the colder months of the year ; in summer the pheasant is 

 decidedly insectivorous ; all contained numerous fragments; 



