84 



IHE OOLOGIS'l . 



know of we shall be compelled to 

 "post" this year, and keep everybody 

 ofif in order to save the birds. Our loc- 

 al sportsmen we can control, and they 

 will not kill them, but the reed and rail 

 bird shooting here brings so many 

 strangers that they follow it up when 

 the quail season comes in, and we can 

 protect the pheasants in no other way. 

 The "out" birds in the woods will no 

 doubt, many of them, be killed. I 

 know of at least a dozen broods in the 

 woods within ^wo or three miles, which 

 shows that they will soon spread ever a 

 large area of territory, and I think 

 enough of them will escape this fall to 

 insure the success of their introduction 

 They breed such large broods, take good 

 care of their young, stand the winters 

 well and will no doubt multiply. If 

 we had only had last year and this year, 

 while they were gaining a foothold, a 

 close season, we would have made a 

 complete success of their introduction, 

 and would probably after that never 

 had need of anything. 



From Mr. Julius Munch, Preakness, 

 Sept. 15. 1898: The half-dozen Ring- 

 necked Pheasants sent me gave me a 

 desire to attempt the raising of these 

 birds on a more extensive scale, and I 

 accordingly secured two dozen more, 

 and I am glad to say that I am more 

 than gratified with the result. I was 

 wholly inexperienced, and to this I at- 

 tribute the loss of many young birds. 

 I first attempted to induce the hen 

 pheasant to sit, but did not succeed. 

 I watched the bird very closely aud 

 thought she showed a determination to 

 sit, as she was most of the time crouch- 

 ed on the ground in a nest she had 

 made in the sand. I permitted her to 

 keep her own eggs, and added others 

 to it, but the bird never sat more than 

 five or ten minutes at a time, when she 

 would get up and run away for several 

 minutes, after which she returned to 

 her eggs. 1 saw she would not hatch, 

 and so I took all but two of the eggs 



away from her. aud sl<e i?poiled these 

 two. 



I found that I had the best success 

 with game and bantam hens, the only 

 objection to the latter being that they 

 cannot cover more than eight eggs. I 

 hatched out nearly every egg in this 

 way. 



At first I started near my house in 

 small boxes, with a little runway for 

 the chicks, keeping the hen shut up in 

 the box. Rainstorms killed from thirty 

 to fifty chicks a day, and so I abandon- 

 ed this method and placed the hens and 

 chicks in the woods, where I gave the 

 little ones more runway. I think this 

 obviated the difliculty, for after that I 

 did not lose more than one or two 

 chicks a day, and some days not at all. 

 It is my opinion that most of the losses 

 were due to the fact that the chicks did 

 not have enough exercise to keep the 

 body heat while I had them near the 

 house. 



I think the birds have locality very 

 well developed, and do not believe that 

 they will wander far from any place 

 where there is food and shelter. Even 

 the chicks showed this to a remarkable 

 extent, and it was amusing to watch 

 them at feeding time. At one time I 

 had as many as two dozen broods in 

 the woods, each brood with its own en- 

 closure and feeding box. The chicks 

 wandered at will in the woods, but 

 when feeding time came they each re- 

 paired to its own box and never have I 

 seen a chick from one brood eat out of 

 a box placed for another brood. It was 

 very amusing to see them scurrying 

 about looking for their own particular 

 feed box and paying no attention to the 

 boxes used by the others. I had the 

 woods fenced in with wire netting, but 

 occasionally some little fellow develop- 

 ed sufficient strength of wing to get 

 over the fence without having sagacity 

 sufficient to find its way back. When 

 we opened the fence sufficiently to per- 

 mit it to come back, it made a direct 



