NATURALIZATION IN ENGLAND. 117 



should be put in the vessel containing the water, which it 

 is then sure to observe. As with domestic fowls, it eats, 

 when in confinement, meat, whether raw or boiled. 

 It should be constantly supplied with dry sand placed 

 in a box, or something similar, as it daily ' dusts ' itself. 

 Thus provided, especially should the sun shine, it forms 

 for itself a hole with its beak in the sand, which it throws 

 over its body. Afterwards it lies first on one side and 

 then on the other, or it may be on its back, and with its 

 eyes half shut. Oftentimes it mounts on some little 

 elevation in the coop and whistles. One is seldom for- 

 tunate enough to rear the chicks when taken very young, 

 most probably because the proper food cannot be 

 procured for them." 



It is to me a mystery why the Hazel-Hen, which from 

 its English name would almost seem to have been a 

 former inhabitant of the British Isles, has not been 

 naturalized with us, inasmuch as it is of all game birds 

 the most delicious, of consummate beauty, and of un- 

 conquerable hardihood, " and adapted, moreover," accord- 

 ing to Mr. George Chichester Oxenden, who has seen and 

 shot these birds in most European countries, " to every 

 variety of cover, from pine forests to hazel and oak copses." 

 But it is not too late in the day for the Acclimatization 

 Society to take the Hazel-Hen in hand; and if the localities 

 were suitable for the purpose and such there are no doubt 

 in both England and Scotland and the attempt were 

 made with from twenty to fifty brace of these birds, I see 

 no reason why it should not succeed. If the neces- 

 sary steps were taken, and competent people properly 

 appointed with dogs and nets were sent over to Scan- 

 dinavia in the early part of the season, there could 

 be no great difficulty, to my thinking, in procuring the 

 requisite number of birds. 



Epicures toll us the Hazel-IIen boars away the palm 



