Migrant Pheasants
Are pheasants stay-at-homes ? The local hunts all assert that they return to the home wood however severely dis- turbed. The shooting man is not so sure. A farmer, who is not exclusively hunter or shooter, has recently made some observations that are of no little general ornithological interest. There happened to be a quaintly dappled pheasant or two in a plantation through which the hounds ran one misty morning ; and one of these oddly marked birds was seen in three places some way removed from his native wood and finally caught up by a poultryman who found it feeding with his hens. It is the belief of this observer that sudden dis- turbance in a fog is apt to exile birds altogether. The birds presumably lose their way (as do most migrants) and have not a strong enough sense of orientation to find their way back. The moral seems to be that it is a mistake to hunt a covert or to shoot it when the mist is heavy on the land.
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