Practical Game-Preserving. 82 



is that the ground chosen must certainly be dry, and that 

 where the actual huts are formed the thing should be so 

 organised that it forms also a cover and shelter for the 

 birds in severe weather. When the thatch covering for the 

 huts or shelters is well managed and well put on, practi- 

 cally no rain should be able to pass through it, and the 

 surface of the ground beneath should become thoroughly 

 dry and dusty. 



It is a good plan when the huts or shelters are first 

 erected to scatter some sound, dry chaff, with a fair 

 proportion of grain amongst it, upon the ground beneath 



the shelters, more as a means 

 of attraction than for any 

 other specific purpose, and 

 when it is at first sought to 

 bring the birds to a knowledge 

 of the whereabouts of and 

 to feed at these food-shelters, 

 it is not a bad plan to lay 

 thin trails of grain for a 

 Fig. i4.-PheasInt Food-Hopper, hundred yards or so in 



different directions through 



the coverts, but centring upon the respective feeding-places. 

 The trails should be taken through those parts of the 

 covert only where wood-pigeons and other despoilers of the 

 pheasants' food are not likely to discover them when flying 

 over. 



The practice of feeding pheasants in winter by simply 

 strewing the corn or other food upon the ground at certain 

 chosen spots is one very generally adopted, but none the 

 less unsatisfactory. Food-hoppers, such as shown at 

 Fig. 14, may also be employed. There occur, of course, 

 numerous conditions under which this mode of feeding must 

 necessarily be carried out, especially during the shooting 



