50 Formation of Coverts. 



lieu of birch, with the ultimate view of affording these birds 

 the opportunity of preening their plumes whilst perched on 

 the topmost boughs, and enjoying themselves in this secluded 

 retreat during bright weather, to which luxury, under such 

 circumstances, they are very partial. In these cases the 

 Spanish chestnut tree might sometimes perhaps be found an 

 eligible substitute for either the birch or the oak. The larch 

 undoubtedly is a favourite roosting tree with the pheasant, so 

 much so indeed that I have seen odd ones roosting in larches 

 growing within a few yards only of the impenetrable spruce 

 grove. Besides being horizontal, the branches of the larch 

 are rough, affording good foothold, and when the tree is 

 properly grown are but at short distances one above the 

 other, whilst, the collaterals being numerous, the tree in 

 reality affords far more shelter than it appears capable of 

 yielding, though, of course, far too little to conceal the bird 

 from the prying eye of the night poacher. 



" Pheasants are remarkably fond of ' hips ' ; and if the wild 

 rose tree which produces them be kept low by a proper atten- 

 tion to pruning, not only can the birds reach the fruit easily, 

 but the branches stool out and afford admirable covert. Cock 

 pheasants are naturally of a vagrant turn, and at times will 

 ' leave their beans and barley,' in order to indulge in this 

 their favourite propensity to rove in search of their natural 

 wild food in the woods and hedges. On one occasion, early in 

 December, I received a brace of remarkably fine young cock 

 pheasants shot on a manor where the best artificial food is 

 abundantly provided, yet the crop of one of them contained ten 

 full-sized acorns. Apart, too, from their utility as being by far 

 the warmest, most sheltered, and the only thoroughly poacher- 

 proof night coverts for these timid birds, which at roosting 

 time usually court the densest sylvan shade — these evergreen 

 groves possess the signal advantage of harmonising well with, and 

 adding singular beauty to, the surrounding scenery; whilst the 

 internal gloom — lucus a non lucendo — pervading them has also 

 its own pecuhar charms, though it be of a sombre character." 



