Revived Pheasants
One of the few small indications of recovery from the tyranny of war is the new permission accorded to farmers and landowners to rear pheasants if they want to. Not a very large number of landowners are in a position to re-start artificial breeding ; and a good many do not even wish to. One of the sportsman's surprises every year since 1940, when rearing ceased, has been the continued multiplicity of pheasants. In some places the birds appear to have increased ever since breeding was forbidden ; and the foolish old theory that pheasants were inefficient parents has been quite exploded. Altogether the species has been vindi- cated. It has such a particular taste in noxious insects that in some woodless areas pheasants have been successfully introduced for the good of the farms ; and they have flourished along Fenland dykes not less than in orthodox woods. In one paddock I detected pheasants at the work of eating the bulbous roots of buttercups, a surprisingly kindly act. It is curious that in places wild pheasants have flourished in years when partridges have declined, though by general acknowledgement both sexes of this native bird are ideal parents, while the pheasant is polygamous.
Previous page
