38 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT 



in our semi-domesticated plieasants is the desire 

 which they show (especially the males) of escaping 

 from danger through their fleetness of foot rather 

 than by their speed of wing. A story is current in 

 Perthshire of a short-sighted sportsman who used to 

 shoot regularly over a tit-bit of cover. Tradition 

 says that, finding that he could not always see his 

 dog in cover, owing to his own visual deficiency, he 

 sought to remedy the misfortune by attaching a bell 

 to the neck of his spaniel. The result was that the 

 sound of the bell became a signal for all the pheasants 

 that happened to be in the wood to make themselves 

 scarce. Old cock pheasants sometimes run a mile 

 before beaters rather than take wing, and in the case 

 of an emergency will even bolt into a rabbit hole. 

 This is exactly what a knowledge of the habits of the 

 wild bird prepares us to expect ; for the latter prefers 

 the thickest covert that can be found, and usually 

 skulks in reed beds, brushwood, and other under- 

 growth, especially in the neighbourhood of running 

 water, for the pheasant can both swim and dive if 

 necessity requires. 



The wild pheasants are sometimes disturbed by 

 grazing cattle, on which occasions they undoubtedly 

 fly a distance of from one to two miles. ' The pheasant 

 does not rise high in its flight. It always tries to 



