Pheasant's Flight
As I was going up through the wood I saw something moving ahead, past the dying nettles, up among the elderberries and on across the slope beneath the firs. It was the cock pheasant, a handsome bird, .that I first saw there last year at this time. In the spring he came into the garden down below, bringing a hen with him. He did not stay long with his mate, but deserted her, in the manner of his kind, in a week or two. She reared four or five young ones, and led them away at the end of the summer. The cock is back now, and will shelter here for the winter, I expect, for, apart from a poacher who slips over at dusk once in a while, no one shoots here, and we have decided that the pheasant and his family are protected. As I went up among the trees in the direction the cock had taken, he found my presence unbear- able and burst up through the branches and went sailing down into the garden behind me. He called as he went, advertising his whereabouts to the valley. I watched him land among the cabbages. He was not in sight for long. Like an arrow he sped up a row and disappeared. The cabbage-patch is in view of the windows, and no one could trespass there without being seen; so long-tail is safe.
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