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Mrs. Gregory.



in company with three Golden cocks, two Silver hens, and three

Amhersts, one of which I have had over seven years.


All my pheasants have their names, and most know them,

and will come running up when I call, and take bread from my

hand. When I am taming a new one I never look at its eyes

until it has lost all fear of me and does not mind my doing so.

I had one Gold cock that would fly up and take mealworms off

my shoulder ! The Pheasants are not afraid of the Cranes, and

it is a pretty sight to see them all together. The ‘ Demoiselles’

step on the long tails and, being very light, fly over the Pheasants’

heads when they all try to rush for the same piece of bread

thrown—generally the pheasant gets it!


In the spring I cannot have them all loose, they would

fight and kill each other. Each bird has to be separated by wire

divisions in the run until the moulting time begins. I learnt this

after I had two or three of my favourites “done to death.”


For rearing young pheasants much space is required.

They are difficult to bring up unless the pheasant hen hatches them

out and looks after them herself. One of my Silver hens is an

excellent mother. Each spring she makes her nest in the garden

under the shelter of a large Pampas on the lawn. The day after

the chicks are hatched out, she takes them off to a more secluded

part and does not bring them back to the aviaries until they are

six or seven weeks old. I hardly trouble to put food (as they get

all they require in the garden); only once a day some fine bread¬

crumbs and hard-boiled egg, which the Sparrows get most of.

But I always have a load of manure put down, and on it they will

scratch about for hours at a time finding insects and tiny red

worms. This last spring my Amherst hen made a nest inside the

wire run and hatched out five young ones I did not know that

the cock bird should at once be taken away, and he killed two

of them and pecked the others so that they had to be destroyed.

But if they had lived, I do not think I could have brought them

up, as the hen was not tame enough to let loose. Before dusk I

call all my pheasants up and drive them into their respective runs,

except the two Silver hens, who roost in the topmost boughs of

an old apple-tree.


Living with the pheasants for the last year and a half I



