PHEASANTS IN COVERT AND AVIARY 



ability to prevent the birds from straying, and if he can suc- 

 cessfully do this, his responsibilities are not only materially 

 lightened, but when the day of reckoning arrives, both master 

 and servant, to say nothing of the guests in sport, will vie 

 with each other in good fellowship, and feel amply rewarded 

 for the expenditure and labour inseparable from the sport of 

 Pheasant-shooting. 



Five dominant factors stand pre-eminent in encouraging 

 birds to stray from the coverts, and these are : — (a) The 

 absence of drinking water ; (d) shortness of food ; (c) the 

 search for acorns ; (d) the withdrawal of the gun from the 

 covert ; (e) lastly, the natural withdrawal of the birds from 

 the covert during the breeding season. 



Only the two causes first named are under the control of 

 the keeper, though he may, to some extent, modify the third 

 cause in the straying of birds ; therefore, the matter resolves 

 itself into the best and most practical method of obtaining the 

 object he has in view, 



Most of the shooting gazettes have in their advertisements 

 notices respecting the straying of Pheasants, and specifics 

 advertised which the proprietors guarantee will prevent 

 Pheasants from straying ; but as the author has not had any 

 experience of these, he is not in a position to say whether 

 they possess the charm ascribed by the proprietors, though 

 probably some of his readers have had practical experience of 

 these various " Stay at Home " mixtures. 



In the writer's opinion, the best method for preventing 

 Pheasants straying from coverts is to give them plenty of 

 food and water, and if this is done in a thoroughly systematic 

 manner, the birds will have little inclination to stray very far. 

 Shortage of food, shortage of water, irregularity in feeding, 

 and the seduction of the birds by pot-hunting neighbours, 

 through the scattering of tempting cereals, raising the planting 



216 



