174 GAME PRESERVERS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



who will often pick tliem up by mistake), and 

 they will not meddle with them experto crede. 



Another little matter, but jci a very hnpor- 

 tant one, is that they should have plenty of old 

 mortar or lime in the pens. If this is neglected 

 the shells of their eggs will be so thin that the 

 most careful hens will break twenty or twenty- 

 live per cent, during incubation, while, when 

 this is attended to, we. have scarcely had one 

 egg broken. ' 



Numbers of eggs are spoiled during incu- 

 bation. An egg requires pure air as much as it 

 needs heat. There is nothing more unpleasant 

 than the smell of wild flowers round a pheasant's 

 nest. It is the common custom to fit up an out- 

 building with boxes, and fifty or sixty hens are 

 set in these. Mr. Bailey advises that when they 

 are taken off to feed they should be tied by the 

 leg to a peg ; then caught, untied, and put back. 



This is better than letting them run twenty 

 at a time in the outbuilding. Catching them 

 and putting them on acfain is a scene of wild 



