Pheasant hunting

“ The young partridges and wild ducks in the rearing-fields leave the coops and hunt for food in broods, but the young pheasant hunts, or rather wanders, each for itself, careless of the presence of its fellows. This is how it happens that in the wild state the hen pheasant cannot shepherd her chicks. She cannot, like them, be everywhere at once. So the thunderstorm finds many young unprotected by the mother’s wing; the hawks and the crows have no mother to beat off before they can dine on young pheasants, which they have only to find alone in order to kill with ease. ”

“ In rides where the old underwood stumps have not been grubbed, pheasants love to nest on the stumps' tops. In spite of annual trimming, the stumps for years continue to throw up a mass of leafy shoots. The pheasant creeps between them, and is perfectly hidden—at least, as to her head and body. We recall a nest in such a spot within a foot of a path where many people passed daily. Not one discovered the pheasant's secret, except a keeper who saw her protruding tail. ”

“ Keeping well in front of them, I am just in time for a satisfactory right and left at two cock pheasants, which they had hunted down to the very edge of the water before they could persuade them to take wing. Now for that little alder coppice at the further end of the marshy swamp. Hark to that whipping sound so different from the rush of the rising pheasant or the drumming flight of the partridge! I cannot see the bird, but I know it is a woodcock. ”

“ When wholesale pheasant poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in winter, when the trees are bare. Guns, with the barrels filed down, are taken in sacks, and the pheasants are shot where they roost. Their bulky forms stand sharply outlined against the sky, and they are invariably on the lower branches. ”

“ Other creatures may die of starvation in time of snow; but the fox then finds his prey with greatest ease. Cubs are weaned about the middle of May, and must be fed on flesh, when a majority of pheasants are sitting. And when a sitting pheasant is scented or seen by a vixen in search of food for her cubs, that pheasant, you may say, is dead. The keeper, though his blood boils afresh at each nesting tragedy—at the sight of the strewn feathers of the hen pheasant and at the cold touch of the lifeless eggs—appreciates the deftness of the marauder's work. ”

“ They have defied not only gun and trap, but the cunning noose placed at the mouth of their holes.
Twenty creatures, furred and feathered, have undergone severe persecution since the extension of pheasant covers, and of these the first nine have more or less succumbed—namely, pine-marten, polecat, eagle, buzzard, falcon, kite, horned owl, harrier, and raven. The remaining eleven have survived—namely, stoat, weasel, rat, crow, kestrel, sparrowhawk, brown and barn owl, jay, magpie, and woodpecker. Pheasants of themselves are not responsible for all this warfare and all these changes ”

“ Wild birds of prey evidently consider it perfectly legitimate to visit pheasant runs. Raccoons, foxes, rats, and mink, too, may work ruin there. The cover of netting protects from above and it may be necessary, where burrowing animals abound, to dig a trench a foot deep and set the netting down in the ground that far. A few steel traps set unbaited along the outside of the runs may prevent a serious loss and provide you with a handsome mink or raccoon fur skating or motoring cap. Severe cold, even storms, are not fatal to pheasants. ”

“ In England pheasants are extensively grown in game preserves, for shooting and for sale as breeding stock to those [Pg 217] who wish to stock new preserves. Where the birds are fed by a keeper, as they must be when they are very numerous, they become so tame that hunting them is not very exciting sport. Some that have been released in this country, and have lived in a natural state in places where shooting them was not allowed, have become quite as tame as the birds in the English preserves. ”

“ The monks who feed them think that they are inhabited by the spirits of the blest. Where the snow melts in the pine-forests and leaves soft patches and moist earth, you will find the blood-pheasant. When you disturb them they will run up the hillside and call vociferously from their new hiding-place, so that you may get another shot. Pheasant-shooting here is not sport; the birds seldom rise, and when they do it is almost impossible to get a shot at them in the thick jungle. One must shoot them running for the pot. ”

“ They principally frequent the WOODS and hedge-rows, are seldom found in the fields, and then but very rarely far from covert: when upon WING, they are so exceedingly slow in flight, that he must be an exceeding bad marksman who does not HIT his BIRD. The pheasant is included in every successive Act for the preservation of the game; and although they are less liable than HARES and PARTRIDGES to the destructive depredations of the POACHERS, they suffer considerably by FOXES, MARTERNS, POLE-CATS, and other vermin. ”

“ Even with a full moon it is not always easy to see sleeping pheasants which go to roost in the lower branches. It may be more difficult to see a roosting pheasant than to shoot it—though the hardest shot a pheasant can give is when it flies by night. Fir-trees in a pheasant covert have a special value to the roosting birds. ”

“ There are many other species of Pheasants, distinguished by some peculiarity of the plumage, but there is no special difference in their habits.
In the wild state the Pheasants prefer wooded slopes or marshy plains, and their food is composed of grains, berries, Worms, Insects, Snails, etc. They are shy and timid in their nature, taking flight at the least indication of danger. They make their nest on the ground in the midst of a thicket, or in a tuft of grass, and the hen Pheasant lays from twelve to twenty eggs, which require twenty-four days to hatch. ”

“ The birds' legs and feet have sinews which work an automatic- 35 - locking action of the claws, so that, roosting with knees doubled up, the feet grip the branch unfailingly. On rough nights, the pheasants take the precaution of roosting in lower branches than usual. If a strong gale springs up after a bird has gone to roost on an exposed tree, it may be driven to seek a berth on the ground—and to the wind that does no good to the pheasant the passing fox owes his supper. ”

“ It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge would never have established itself with us, where the ground was already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot region ”

“ Wire netting is the cause of many a tragedy to young pheasants. One may see it stretching for miles on the fringe of woods as a fence against rabbits. Suppose a hen pheasant, with her brood, has been making an excursion to the fields. She comes to the wire and finds her return passage barred. Seeing that most of her little ones have wriggled through the meshes, the mother flies over, and goes on. But as often as not she leaves behind her one or two chicks, and these the flower of her flock—for they are the ones so well grown as to be just too large to pass through the meshes. ”

“ He knows that a pheasant, if you can get close enough to it before it rises, is a clumsy bird, and large enough to offer a fair mark, and may be brought down with a stout stick dexterously thrown. As very probably the pheasant is a young one and (not yet having undergone its baptism of fire) only recently regularly fed, it is almost tame and may be approached without difficulty. This is why the keeper just looks round the allotment gardens now and then, and lets his dogs run about; for their noses are much more clever at discovering hidden fur or feathers than his eyes. ”

“ In bringing pheasants to the guns, it is often necessary to discriminate between the wild and tame bred. The former are much more upon the alert than the latter, and it is often impossible to drive them out of a cover, for the very simple reason that they cannot be got to go into and remain in it long enough to be driven out. Then pheasant driving becomes beating a country, very much like grouse or partridge driving. Wild birds are also much more apt to take wing before they are wanted to, and to fly out at the flanks of the beats over the heads of the stops. ”

“ Then, at a certain distance from his gun and a certain angle, the skilful marksman discharges both barrels, converts two pheasants into collapsed bundles of feathers, snatches a second gun from an attendant, and in precisely similar fashion accounts for two more. The flight of the bird is so calculated that the bad shot has little chance of hitting anything at all, so that the pheasant may return to his coop and be preserved intact for another day. ”

“ The sportsman, however, takes care to keep their numbers within due limits. Their habit of squatting or sitting so close to the earth, has been supposed to be an instinctive act to save themselves from the attacks of the hawk, who is unable to master his prey, if large and strong, near the ground, where it could offer resistance. I have met with a story of a pheasant which proves that this bird is very bold and courageous. ”

“ The pheasant being so large a bird, its motions are easy to watch; and the nest is speedily found, because, being in the hedge or under bushes, there is a definite place in which to look, instead of the broad surface of the field. Pheasants will get out of the preserves in the breeding season and wander into the mounds, so that the space the keeper has to range is then enlarged threefold. Both pheasants and partridges are frequently killed on their nests; when the eggs are hard the birds remain to the last moment, and are often knocked over. ”

“ The real test of woodcraft arises when coverts are flat and there are no tall trees. Then it is still possible to make pheasants fly high enough for anyone, provided a few favourable conditions exist. Before referring to these, it may be well to say a word on the character of the pheasant; for it is only by knowing this that a shooter can make sure of getting the birds to behave as they are required to in unexpected or unfavourable conditions. The pheasant, then, is the most timid of game birds ”

“ It is well for the poacher, and well for his methods, that the pheasant is rather a stupid bird. There is no gainsaying its beauty, however, and a brace of birds, with all the old excitement thrown in, are well worth winning, even at considerable risk. In a long life of poaching I have noticed that the pheasant has one great characteristic. It is fond of wandering; and this cannot be prevented. Watch the birds: even when fed daily, and with the daintiest food, they wander off, singly or in pairs, far from the home coverts. ”

“ Imagine the waiter's triumphant entrance into the dining-room, platter held aloft, and the pheasant's brilliant tail feathers streaming far behind like pennants from a mast top!
The pheasant most easily grown in the United States is the ringneck or Mongolian pheasant imported from its home in China. There is hardly a state in the Union where no attempt has been made to raise pheasants. ”

“ These traps seldom capture more than one bird at a time, and they may be thrown accidentally. A small annoyance of pheasant-catching is provided by the active little tits of the wood, who carry the corn outside the cages, and scatter it far and wide for the pheasants to pick up without running any risk. ”

“ In the catalogues of the brokers' sales of feathers we read of many thousands of the wonderful ocellated wing feathers of the argus pheasant, but no less horrible is the sight of a canoe crammed with the bedraggled bodies of these magnificent birds on their way to some Chinese hamlet where they will be sold for a pittance, the flesh eaten to the last tendon and the feathers given to the children and puppies to play with. ”

“ A bird like the pheasant, supposed to have been originally introduced, can exist to-day without artificial aid, but only because we have so reduced the predatory species that it has but few dangers; yet where it is truly wild it is never numerous. ”

“ If one were to shoot lying down, kneeling or standing, the danger to peasants in the fields would be very great. The pheasants were sometimes shot over dogs, but usually as the beaters drove small woods. A pheasant driven and flying high makes a difficult mark. One getting up before the dogs is almost too easy a shot. ”

“ NE who loves our feathered friends has described a curious instance of their instinct. On the back lawn at a gentleman's house, they have a feeding-box for the pheasants, which opens on their perching upon it, but remains shut if any lesser bird than a hen pheasant perches there, which saves the contents from the thefts of these, and of rats, mice, and other vermin. ”

“ During heavy squalls we have often been put in fear by the crash of falling timber; but our men were very particular in not pitching the tents near half-rotten trees. The Argus pheasant is found in many places we have passed during this expedition, and occasionally in the jungle we have come across open spots strewed with the feathers of the cock bird, where two have been struggling for mastery. ”

“ Nothing must enter the domains of the hand-reared pheasant; even the nightingale is not safe. A naturalist has recorded that in a district he visited, the nightingales were always shot by the keepers and their eggs smashed, because the singing of these birds at night disturbed the repose of the pheasants! They also always stepped on the eggs of the fern-owl, which are laid on the ground, and shot the bird if they saw it, for the same reason, as it makes a jarring sound at dusk. ”