THE NEW FORESTRY. 27 



ing to the testimony of the most intelligent advocates of the 

 system, at least fifty per cent, of the eggs set never produce 

 birds for the gun, and that, under the ordinary run of 

 management, the loss is very much greater than that ; second, 

 that according to the testimony of those who have the best 

 opportunities of knowing, pheasant eggs purchased from 

 outside sources are, " in the great majority of cases, stolen 

 from gentlemen's preserves by poachers ; third, that eggs 

 from penned-up birds are inferior, and a frequent source of 

 disease in the young birds ; fourth, that a very large propor- 

 tion of good eggs picked up in the coverts fail when set under 

 hens ; and, fifth, that the practice of picking up the wild-laid 

 eggs on estates is carried to excess, to the destruction of the 

 wild stock. 



Evidence of the above kind would be sufficient to condemn 

 any system in any other department of an estate, and if it 

 does not show the urgent need of reorganisation and a better 

 class of gamekeepers, we do not know what would. 



The foregoing remarks refer to rearing where the master 

 pays all expenses and takes all risks ; but it should be stated 

 here, for the benefit of those who may still favour the artificial 

 method, that the contract system is now coming into favour, 

 especially in Scotland, and where this plan is adopted, the 

 forester, with an assistant, could carry out the work as well as 

 a regular keeper. One of the first authorities on game preser- 

 vation writes us that in the North, keepers offer to rear the 

 birds till the beginning of August (or when they can be fed 

 on corn at from is. ?d. to 2s. per head), finding the field, the 

 sitting hens and the food the eggs to be picked up in the 

 coverts. One keeper to a nobleman writes that he has 

 carried out this plan on the same estate for seven years, at 

 2s. per head, and says that he did not make much by it, but 

 that, on the average, he did not lose anything. 



SECTION V. THE NATURAL OR WILD SYSTEM OF 

 REARING PHEASANTS. 



The chances of raising a sufficient number of pheasants on 

 an estate by allowing the birds to lay and hatch under purely 

 natural conditions in the coverts, in conformity with the 

 forestry working plans, must be calculated on the same prin- 

 ciple as that on which the artificial breeder proceeds. For 

 so many birds expected to come to maturity he sets so many 



