THE NEW FORESTRY. 25 



birds, which are included in the above figures. It will be 

 admitted, we hope, that the number of birds brought to the 

 gun ought to bear some reasonable proportion to the eggs set, 

 bought, or picked up. In not a few instances we have heard 

 of even a less proportion than the above being got To be 

 sure, however, we wrote to a well-known expert on this subject, 

 a shooting estate agent, who is also a thoroughly practical 

 gamekeeper and sportsman, and an advocate of artificial 

 rearing, who is much consulted on the subject. He writes, 

 June 29th, 1 898 : " Pheasant rearing is now skilfully reduced 

 to a science in Scotland. I always think that a thousand 

 birds brought up to the gun, out of two thousand eggs, a 

 success." Now this is a loss of fifty per cent, by the most 

 scientific and skilful process, and bears out our own calcula- 

 tions under ordinary conditions. We referred our correspon- 

 dent to an estate where no artificial rearing was practised, and 



he admitted that " D was a celebrated place for 



pheasants, even without rearing," but added, " to me, whose 

 business it is to study bags of large shoots, it is surprising how, 

 generally speaking, they go down." It will be shown further 

 on why the stock " goes down." Now, where is this dis- 

 crepancy between the eggs and the birds accounted for ? 

 Undoubtedly, almost entirely, between the setting of the eggs 

 under the hens and the turning of the birls into the coverts, 

 or, in other words, during the time the birds are under the 

 purely artificial care of the keeper. During this period the 

 loss between eggs that never hatch and birds that die is always 

 great and often frightful, far surpassing anything known in 

 any other class of stock. The writer on the pheasant in the 

 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," last edition, who appears to have 

 had access to excellent sources of information, speaking of 

 hand-reared birds, states that the proportion that come to the 

 gun may amount to three-fourths of those that are hatched 

 (not of eggs set) ; but that, in many of the western counties, it 

 would seem that more than half of the number that live to 

 grow their feathers disappear inexplicably before the coverts 

 are beaten. All that is here stated is corroborated annually 

 by lamentable accounts of losses among artificially-reared 

 birds. 



Long experience has taught some keepers a few essential 

 rules that must be observed ; but, as a rule, they proceed on 

 no rational principle in what they do, despising scientific books 

 relating to their duties, but readily adopting any ridiculous 

 rule of thumb suggestions coming from others as ignorant as 



