1 DECEMBER 1928, Page 18

A TRAGEDY IN WILD LIFE [To the Editor of the

SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The following facts will, I think, -be interesting to many of your readers : On Tuesday of this week our keeper was passing through one of the woods and, in looking up with the object -of sighting some pigeons he had reason to expect to be righting over at the time, he saw a cock pheasant suspended head: downwards high up a. branch of some underwood. With difficulty he succeeded in bringing the bird to the ground, when he found one of its legs had become ensnared in a rabbit wire ; it had obviously been able to escape.with the wire and a piece of string which is used to attach the wire to a stump in the ground. How the bird succeeded in detaching the string from the stump, when it was intended to hold a rabbit, I can give no explanation. It did, however, and in due course flew away, intending to settle in the wood, when the wire and string. hanging from its leg _twisted round the branch with sufficient number of turns to make the bird a prisoner.. Why it submitted to being suspended and had not recovered its balance when fluttering sufficiently . to reach a -perching position must remain a mystery. It was dead when released and in perfect condition, which suggests it must have died, (mercifully) without. a period. of starvation.—:-.1 am, Sir, &e.,

Santon, Elm' Road,

E. W. BO,WVER.