Practical Game-Preserving. 6 



is, in as far as the pheasant has such in these islands, its 

 haunts are always chosen in or in proximity to woods or 

 plantations, the most favoured being those where thick 

 undergrowth of small bushes, shrubs, bracken, and 

 bramble abound, as it usually does in the woods and 

 plantations of this country, where the underwood, such 

 a noteworthy feature of the landscape, is most conducive 

 to its welfare and contentment. 



This game-bird is, on the whole, of a retiring disposi- 

 tion, and, during the daytime, remains concealed, as a 

 rule, somewhere amongst the covert it enjoys. Although 

 individual birds are often seen, the number is small in 

 comparison to those which do not show themselves. The 

 pheasant generally chooses for its feeding-times the 

 periods about sunrise and before sunset, at which hours 

 the obtaining of food becomes a necessary occupation, 

 while during the remainder of the day it may, like other 

 birds, pick up any morsel of provender which may take 

 its fancy. It has, also, certain defined feeding-grounds 

 to which it runs. Sometimes they are near to, occasion- 

 ally distant from, its haunts; but in any case it usually 

 adopts a terrestrial, in place of an aerial path, making 

 good use of its legs in preference to flying. In the 

 intervals of feeding the pheasant lies pretty close in the 

 covert, spinney, or hedgerow, and although it may wander 

 about somewhat, its daily existence is invariably within 

 certain bounds, which are only transgressed under excep- 

 tional circumstances. At night, the pheasant except 

 during a portion of the nesting and brooding season goes 

 to roost on some neighbouring tree which offers a horizontal 

 branch to perch upon, but its preference for the larch or 

 the oak is very marked, and it is noteworthy that pheasants 

 at roost on the former tree are very visible from beneath 

 to any would-be poacher by reason of the scantiness of its 



