PHEASANT. 



obtain their object in a cheaper way than through the legal and recognised channels: 

 such people we have heard boast that they could always procure game at little more 

 than half the market price. From whom could they buy it, unless from the poacher or 

 his associates? Such conduct cannot be too strongly reprobated. Little do these people 

 think that the convicted felon, who expiates his offence in prison or in exile, may perhaps 

 have been led on, and on, in his career of crime by their guilty and unprincipled selfishness. 



TTe will now consider the natural habits of the Pheasant, and will show that these are 

 of such a kind as to make it, as before remarked, an easy prey to the illegal sportsman. 



The most favourite resort of the Pheasant is the thick, brushy underwood, composed of 

 small shrubs, bramble bushes, long coarse grass, and other wild plants, which is often 

 met with through the whole of small woods and coppices, and in the outskirts of larger 

 woods, or Avhere woods have been cut down, and the brushwood allowed to grow as it 

 would. In such situations as the above the Pheasant remains quiet and concealed during 

 the day-time, but at sunset and sunrise it leaves this seclusion for the more open feeding - 

 ground : it is singular that on these occasions it never walks, but, we believe, invariably 

 runs from the cover to the place where it is accustomed to feed. Its habitually 

 frequenting the same cover and feeding-ground, leads to the formation of narrow runs or 

 paths, which, to the practised eye, tell with certainty the number and kind of game to 

 be expected. It is mentioned in Thompson's "Natural History of Ireland," that in that 

 country Pheasants are frequently found during the summer and autumn months in the 

 potato fields. TTe never remember to have noticed the Pheasant in such a locality in 

 England, but the extensive culture of the potato in Ireland, very often to the partial 

 exclusion of wheat, may account for this adaptation of its habits to the necessity of the case. 



During the autumn, winter, and early spring months the Pheasant perches in trees 

 when at roost, but from the beginning of April till the middle or end of September its 

 roosting-place is among the long and coarse grass and sedge of its favourite cover. On 

 withdrawing from the trees as roosting-places in the spring, the Hen bird is the first to 

 set the example; but the Cock Pheasant does not abandon his tree for several weeks 

 later. "When, however, they have taken to the ground, they do not again use the trees at 

 night, unless something has occurred to disturb them. During the winter single individuals 

 will frequently leave the coverts ; and, if not molested, will remain for a considerable time at 

 a distance from their natural haunts, and during this period, they usually roost in hedges, 

 or thick grass or stubble, seldom resorting to trees as roosting-places. These stragglers 

 are the exceptions; as a common rule, Pheasants will be found in winter roosting in 

 trees, and generally somewhat in company — where one is found, others may be expected 

 at no great distance. The tree preferred by the Pheasant for its nocturnal resting-place, 

 is the larch fir when attainable; and this probably arises from the peculiar growth of 

 this tree — the branches being nearly at right-angles to the trunk. Their preference for 



