PHEASAIS'T EEARING. 173 



one of the very commonest and least suspected 

 causes of failure, and no cliano-e of food will 

 prevent their doing this if they once find out 

 how nice new-laid eggs are. 



It arises from curiosity, in the first instance. 

 Introduce an egg into a pen where the birds 

 have not begun to lay. They will nearly all 

 peck at it a httle, and turn it over and over. 

 If it breaks, and they taste it, they will eat it 

 shell and all to the last morsel ;• and shortly 

 afterwards every egg will be watched for, and 

 totally demolislied, a damp mark on the ground 

 being the only trace it will leave. These birds 

 are ruined for that season at any rate. The 

 cure is to have artificial china eggs made, and 

 to put several in each pen a week or two before 

 they begin to lay. They will peck at these at 

 first ; but pecking a slippery lump of china is so 

 unsatisfactory an amusement that they soon 

 take no notice of them. 



They cannot tell the real eggs from these 

 (no more can the man who collects the eo-ss. 



