THE PHEASANT OF THE WOODLANDS 41 



acorns from the crop of a pheasant cock. Pheasants 

 like to feed upon potatoes a short time before they are 

 lifted. In the spring of the year they do a good deal 

 of injury to newly sown barley. When hard pinched 

 they feed on the polypody fern and many other vege- 

 table substances. They have, in fact, become practi- 

 cally omnivorous in this country. The wild pheasants 

 feed on all kinds of grain, especially wheat and barley, 

 grass seeds and berries, grapes, hips, &c. If the wild 

 fruits of the forest become scarce in winter, they feed 

 in the nearest fields on grass seeds. 



In winter cattle are turned out to feed in the dry 

 reeds, which they trample down, and the pheasants 

 are then generally to be found in the damp spots 

 which have escaped their attention. They are shot 

 over dogs, and the bag varies with the locality. In 

 some districts as many as thirty and forty birds can 

 be shot in a day ; but such numbers are due to some 

 protection afforded to the birds. Nor is this sur- 

 prising if we take into account the persecution to which 

 the birds are exposed at the hands of the peasantry. 



The following method is adopted by peasants 

 who have meadows overgrown with coarse weeds or 

 reeds or corn fields on their lands : ' In these meadows 

 or corn fields they clear away a space about the size of 

 a threshing floor, and then close to this clearing they 



