242 PHEASANTS 



commonly bachelor cocks, will often take 

 offence at the proximity of the rearing- 

 field, and emerge from the coverts to 

 work havoc among the chicks, their im- 

 mediate destruction being then imperative. 

 Mr. Grimble notes that on one occasion, 

 at Kilmaraig in Argyle, he saw an old 

 drake from the farmyard swallowing a 

 pheasant chick, and subsequent dissection 

 revealed two more chicks as big as tennis 

 balls already inside. In 1912 Mr. Maurice 

 Portal informs me that at Beaufort, near 

 Hexham, a cock partridge, whose wife 

 had been eaten on the nest by a fox, came 

 to the rearing -field and killed fifty -six 

 young pheasants in four days, before 

 being shot himself. 



Disease Symptoms 



Canker (Mycosis of air- Difficult breathing ; mop- 

 PASSAGEs). iug ; mouth full of yellow 



cheesy material ; usually 

 fatal among chicks, wind- 

 pipe and lung being 

 affected. 



CocciDiosis( = White DiAR- Drooping of chick's wings ; 

 RH(EA of poultry breeders). habit of constantly look- 



ing downwards ; increased 

 appetite and thirst, ac- 

 companied by wasting ; 



