180 PHEASANT. 
The cock Pheasant deserts the hen as soon as the, eggs are 
laid, and she alone has the rearing of the young. 
When fed in hard weather, they learn to come at the call 
of the keeper. The hen will sometimes hatch her eggs in 
confinement. They are foolish birds, and one has been known 
to ‘run farther into the danger, than try to get out of it, 
and await its fate with patient stupidity, without the least 
attempt to extricate itself.’ 
The male Pheasant is polygamous, having from six to nine 
mates. Its natural habits confine it to the ground, and there 
it roosts in the summer and autumn, among long grass or 
bushes; but in the winter commonly in trees at a height of 
ten or twenty feet from the ground; in the early spring the 
hen roosts near the cock, either in the same tree or in some 
one close to it, whose shelter it also seeks at other times if 
alarmed. In the early part of the winter open trees are resorted 
to, but in more severe weather, those of an evergreen kind— 
hollies and firs. In strictly preserved places, they often derive 
boldness from conscious security, and display but very little 
fear of man. 
Its flight is straight, laboured, and heavy, performed by 
quick flappings of the wings; the tail expanded: in descending, 
it steadies its wings and sails before alighting. A considerable 
sound is made by its first rising. They run very fast on 
occasion, and if alarmed, either speed into the nearest cover 
or take wing. If not disturbed, but feeding quietly, they 
move about leisurely, running every now and then, the wings 
rather drooped, and the tail “nearly straight, but rather more 
elevated than at other times. 
It feeds on cereal grain of the various kinds, and beans, 
beech-mast, chesnuts, acorns, blackberries, sloes, hips and haws, 
and other small wild fruits; also the shoots and leaves of 
various plants, turnip tops, and grass, the roots of the golden 
buttercup, and of various grasses and bulbous plants; worms, 
grasshoppers, gnats, and other insects. It does a large 
amount of damage in its consumption of the first-named: 
where there are ant- hills, the hen bird leads her young to 
them, in the grass-fields, and afterwards into those of corn. 
Mr. Macgillivray found a quantity of a species of fern in 
one. If they come into a garden, they devour grapes, 
potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and turnips, and scratch the 
ground in search of food. They are particularly fond of 
sunflower seeds and buckwheat. 
