260 PHEASANTS 



the game world it would be well for all 

 concerned to make an annual clearance of 

 the pheasants, and that in almost every 

 case where partridges are a feature of the 

 shooting, it were no bad thing to limit the 

 number of hens laying at large, and rely 

 mainly on penned birds for the supply of 

 eggs. 



At the same time it must be remem- 

 bered that some authorities are strongly 

 in favour of rearing pheasants only from 

 eggs laid under natural conditions. Thus 

 in a recently published book on pheasants, 

 already referred to in a previous chapter — 

 a work almost wholly devoted to the 

 problems of the rearing -field from a 

 practical point of view — we may find this 

 view strongly expressed : — ^ 



Eggs derived from wild birds and then hatched 

 by hens and subsequently reared under artificial 

 conditions are, most certainly in the writer's 

 opinion, superior to those produced in the pens 

 from penned birds. If plenty of hen Pheasants 

 are left in the coverts, which there ought to be in 



1 Pheasants in Covert and Aviary, by F. T. Barton, 

 1912, pp. 116-125. 



