370 
PHEASANT. 
uncommon in this country. would appear,” says Selby, “that 
the northern parts of the kingdom are particularly suitable to them, 
as they are making considerable progression, and have, within a com- 
paratively short space of time, spread themselves over the whole 
county of Northumberland. In this district the ring-necked variety 
is most prevalent, and has nearly superseded the common kind. The 
principal food of the Pheasant in the winter months is grain and seeds, 
but in spring and summer it lives more upon roots and insects. I have 
observed that the root of the bulbous crowfoot, (^Ranunculus hulhosus() 
a common but acrid meadow plant, is particularly sought after by this 
bird, and forms a great portion of its food during the months of May 
and June. The root of the garden tulip is also an article of diet, which 
it omits no opportunity of obtaining, and which, by means of its bill and 
feet, it is almost certain to reach, however deep it may be buried.”* 
In the early period of life, the infant Pheasants are delicate in con- 
finement, for want of that food with which nature has so amply sup- 
plied their table in the wilderness : yet a large portion, with care, pass 
this delicate age, but have still to contend with that period of life when 
their nestling feathers are to be superseded by adult plumage. This is 
the time that many droop, for want of strength to support so consi- 
derable an exhaustion of animal secretion, to the furtherance of that 
great design. But of all the maladies under which this species, as well 
as some others of a similar nature, suffer, there is none so horribly de- 
structive as the oscitans, or the distemper usually called the gapesy 
occasioned by an intestinal worm, (^Fasciolo iracheay Montagu,) which, 
lodging in the wind-pipe, (trachea^ causes death by suffocation, from 
the inflamed state of the part. 
We have been assured by Lord Caernarvon, that in his pheasantry, at 
Pixton, in Somersetshire, not above ten young ones are brought to 
maturity out of a hundred eggs, and that the greater number die about 
the age when the distinction of sexual plumage begins to be visible ; at 
that age his lordship has generally found the gaping distemper to rage 
most violently. 
Mr. Herbert attributes his success in rearing Pheasants, to the cele- 
brity of his keeper, who being aware that the disease was occasioned 
by worms, treated it as is usual with other animals having a vermicular 
complaint. How far the nosological knowledge of this iLsculapian 
keeper, or even his physiological enquiries may have directed his pre- 
scription, we shall not here discuss ; but we cannot suppose that a 
pellet or two of rue, mixed with butter, with which the Pheasants are 
crammed, can produce that beneficial effect he seems to ascribe to it. 
