364 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Regarded, however, simply in a sporting sense, the 

 numbers reared each year throughout this great game 

 preserving county must be something enormous, and 

 statistics drawn from the game-books of some only of the 

 principal estates, would show figures not more startling 

 as to the number of "head" than as considered in 

 connection with the cost of preserving on a really 

 grand scale."^ As before stated, the impossibility of 

 rearing a very large " head" in any one locality, except 

 by the adoption of artificial means, has brought 

 pheasant-hatching of late years to a thoroughly 

 organised system. Hen pheasants, as is well known, do 

 not brood readily in confinement, and are liable to drop 

 their eggs at random, the produce, therefore, of such 

 birds as have been reserved for *^ stock" are placed 

 under domestic hens (being the closest sitters), and 

 all outlying birds are also carefully watched, and 

 their eggs taken lest rooks, crows, or other depre- 

 dators should find and destroy them. Incubation then 

 takes place in well planned wooden lockers, fitted up 

 in buildings erected for the purpose, and so admirable 

 are the arrangements, for this particular purpose, 

 on many of our large estates, that the inspection 

 of the pheasantries and a description of the "process" 

 from an intelligent head keeper, whilst the young 

 are "coming off," cannot fail to be interesting to 

 the visitor. In this manner a very large proportion of 

 the birds, in our principal preserves, are reared every 



* Dr. Wynter, in a paper on "the London Commissariat" 

 (Curiosities of civilization, p. 223) says, " Pheasants and partridges 

 mainly come from Norfolk and Suffolk," and gives some 70,000 

 as an approximate estimate of the number of the former, 125,000 

 of the latter, annually sent to the London markets. To these must 

 also be added the large quantity sold by our local poulterers, and 

 those disposed of as presents; the latter, however, by modern 

 custom, need not be set down at too high a figure. 



