6o PROPAGATION OF WILD BIRDS 



Handling Chicks. It is useless to attempt incubators 

 and brooders. The bantam mother is the best artificial 

 medium. Twenty-four days is the period of incubation. 

 Then the chicks should be handled about as young quails. 

 They are most sensitive to direct sunshine, and must always 

 have plenty of shade on hot days, else they will die of sun- 

 stroke. A gamekeeper once, despite my warning, gave a 

 brood a bare yard, without shade. In the middle of the day 

 the little fellows suddenly began to stretch up their necks, 

 stagger, and fall dead. He saved only one, by giving it 

 shade, and reared it to maturity. 



Raising a Brood. An experience that I had in success- 

 fully raising a brood of ruffed grouse under my supervision is 

 instructive enough to be worth describing in detail. This 

 was for Senator George P. McLean. Thirteen eggs were 

 placed under a buff cochin bantam, and all hatched on June 

 5th. Some hens, be it said, are naturally careful mothers, 

 and never hurt their chicks; others are utter blockheads, and 

 trample th,eir young or rake them in scratching with utter 

 indifference. A gentleman who had a nice young brood of 

 sixteen with a hen suddenly saw the hen begin to scratch 

 vigorously and throw the chicks by handfuls against the 

 wire, killing a number of them. She finally exterminated 

 the whole brood. This hen of ours was likewise stupid and 

 clumsy. In the first four days she crushed five chicks. I 

 am inclined to think that, in view of the tameness of young 

 grouse, a light Seabright or part game bantam, with small, 

 unfeathered feet, would be better. 



Grouse Ways. Hen and chicks slept in a small, bottom- 

 less coop, and ranged about during the day in an open pen, 

 with a fence 5 feet high. The area was about 60 feet square, 

 and had in it a small clump of trees, also bushes and grass. 

 Less than half of it was shaded, but the grass gave consider- 



