CHAPTER II. 



PHEASANTS: Introduction upon an Estate. 



THOSE who are about to introduce or to commence 

 preserving pheasants on an estate where hitherto there have 

 been no birds, or at least extremely few, should not decide 

 upon so doing unless they have previously satisfied them- 

 selves that the locality is a suitable one. As a rule it is 

 the apparent suitability of an estate that gives rise 

 to the desire to raise a stock of pheasants on it. The 

 general features required render a lengthy description of 

 the qualities proper to a pheasant-preserve unnecessary. 



The progress of agriculture formerly tended to lessen 

 steadily the area of covert everywhere; whilst with the 

 continued lessening of the margin of profit on farming, 

 everything in the nature of outlying cover, such as wide 

 and untrimmed hedges, spinneys, small patches of wood- 

 land and the like, has had to give way before the 

 demands of the agriculturist. There are, however, very 

 few districts throughout the country unmarked by suitable 

 sites for pheasant-preserves, the only requisites being a 

 sufficiency of woodland, coppice, and other coverts, to- 

 together with arable land, grass land, brake, and common. 



The best coverts are those of young trees, where spruce, 

 larch, other firs, oak, and ash are well commingled, the 

 spruce having the advantage if possible in point of 

 numbers ; and beneath these a fairly abundant undergrowth 

 of hazel, holly, and other evergreen shrubs such as laurel. 



