1052 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III, 



set two or three hens'on the same day, you will have the advantage of shifting the good eggs. At the end 

 of ten or twelve days, throw away those that are bad, and set the same hen or hens again, if setting hens 

 should not be pleaty. The hens having set their full time, such of the young pheasants as are already 

 hatched, putinto a basket, with a piece of flannel, till the hen has done hatching. The brood now come, 

 put under a frame with a net over it, and a place for the hen, that she cannot get to the young pheasants, 

 but that they may go to her : and feed them with boiled egg cut small, boiled milk and bread, alum curd, 

 ants' eggs, a little of each sort, and often. After two or three days they will be acquainted with the call of 

 the hen that hatched them, may have their liberty to run on the grass plat, or elsewhere, observing to 

 shift them with the sun, and out of the cold winds ; they need not have their liberty in the morning till 

 the sun is up ; and they must be shut in with the hen in good time in the evening. Everything now 

 going on properly, you must be very careful (in order to guard against the distemper to which they are 

 liable) in your choice of a situation for breeding the birds up ; and be less afraid of foxes, dogs, polecats, 

 and all sorts of vermin, than the distemper. Castang had rather encounter all the former than the latter ; 

 lor those with care may be prevented, but the distemper once gotin is like the plague, and destroys all your 

 hopes. What lie means by a good situation is nothing more than a place where no poultry, pheasants, or 

 turkeys, &c. have ever been kept ; such as the warm side of a field, orchard, pleasure-ground, or garden, 

 or even on a common, or a good green lane, under circumstances of this kind ; or by a wood side ; but 

 then it is proper for a man to keep with them, under a temporary hovel, and to have two or three dogs 

 chained at a proper distance, with a lamp or two at night. He has known a great number of pheasants 

 bred up in this manner in the most exposed situations. It is proper for the man always to have a gun, 

 that he may keep off the hawks, owls, jays, magpies, &c. The dogs and lamps shy the foxes more than 

 any thing ; and the dogs will give tongue for the man to be on his guard if smaller vermin are near, or 

 when strollers make their appearance. The birds going on as before mentioned, should so continue till 

 September, or (if very early bred), the middle of August. Before they begin to shift the long feathers in 

 the tail, they are to be shut up in the basket with the hen regularly every night ; and when they begin to 

 shift their tail the birds are large, and begin to lie out, that is, they are not willing to come to be shut up 

 in the basket : those that are intended to be turned out wild, should be taught to perch (a situation they 

 have never been used to) ; this is done by tying a string to the hen's leg, and obliging her to sit in a tree 

 all night : be sure you put her in the tree before sun-set ; and if she falls down, you must persevere in 

 putting her up again till she is contented with her situation ; then the young birds will follow the hen, 

 and perch with her. This being done, and the country now covered with corn, fruits, and shrubs, &c. 

 they will shift for themselves. For such young pheasants as you make choice of for your breeding-stock 

 at home, and likewise to turn out in spring following, provide a new piece of ground, large and roomy for 

 two pens, where no pheasants, &c. have been kept, and there put your young birds in as they begin to 

 shift their tails. Such of them as you intend to turn out at a future time, or in another place, put into 

 one pen netted over, and leave their wings as they are ; and those you wish to keep for breeding put into 

 the other pen, cutting one wing of each bird. The gold and silver pheasants you must pen earlier, or 

 thpy will be off. Cut the wing often ; and when first penned feed all your young birds with barley-meal, 

 dough, com, and plenty of green turnips. 



6783. A receipt to make alum curd. Take new milk, as much as your young birds require, and boil it 

 with a lump of alum, so as not to make the curd hard and tough, but custard like. Give a little of this 

 curd twice a day ; and ants' eggs after every time they have had a sufficient quantity of the other food. 

 If they do not eat heartily, give them some ants'eggs to create an appetite, but by no means in such abun- 

 dance as to be considered their food. The distemper alluded to above, is not improbably of the same 

 nature as the roup in chickens, contagious, and dependent on the state of the weather ; and for preven- 

 tion requiring similar precautions. When a pheasantry is connected with a piece of ground covered with 

 bushes or shrubbery, the birds may be bred in houses or pens, and afterwards put out into small enclo- 

 sures, say one hundred feet square, with fences twelve feet, high, each containing abundance of low ever- 

 greens, especially the spruce fir, and an artificial or natural supply of water. Under such an arrange- 

 ment the hen pheasant will hatch her own eggs, and the following directions are given as to attendance 

 by the same experienced person. Not more than four hens to be allowed in the pens to one cock. And 

 in the out covers, three hens to one cock may be sufficient, with the view of allowing for accidents, such 

 as the loss of a cock or hen. Never put more eggs under a hen than she can well and closely cover, the 

 eggs fresh and carefully preserved. Short broods to be joined and shifted to one hen : common hen phea- 

 sants in close pens, and with plenty of cover, will sometimes make their nests and hatch their own eggs : 

 but they seldom succeed in rearing their brood, being so naturally shy ; whence should this method be 

 desired, they must be left entirely to themselves, as they feel alarm even in being looked at. Eggs for 

 setting are generally ready in April. Period of incubation the same in the pheasant as in the common 

 hen. Pheasants, like the pea-fowl, will clear grounds of insects and reptiles, but will spoil all wall-trees 

 within their reach, by picking off every bud and leaf. 



6784. Feeding. Strict cleanliness to be observed, the meat not to be tainted with 

 dung, and the water to be pure and often renewed. Ants' eggs being scarce, hog-lice, 

 ear-wigs, or any insect may be given ; or artificial ants* eggs substituted, composed of 

 flour beaten up with an egg and shell together, the pellets rubbed between the fingers to 

 the proper size. After the first three weeks, in a scarcity of ants' eggs, Castang gives 

 a few gentles, procured from a good liver tied up, the gentles, when ready, dropping 

 into a pan or box of bran ; to be given sparingly, and not considered as common food. 

 Food for grown pheasants, barley or wheat ; generally the same as for other poultry. In 

 a cold spring hemp seed, or other warming seeds are comfortable, and will forward the 

 breeding stock. 



6785. In keeping fancy pheasants, as the gold, silver, or other breeds, the best mode is to 

 enclose a few poles of ground containing trees and bushes with a well painted copper 

 netting, and in some concealed part to have a house or lodge for supplying water and food. 

 This forms by far the most elegant aviary, and is the only one that at all times appears, 

 clean. They will thrive very well, however, in an aviary on the common construction. 



6786. The partridge {Tetrao perdix, fig. 732.) is a native of all the temperate regions 

 of Europe, but unable to sustain rigorous cold, or intense 732 



heat. Partridges are highly valued as food on most parts of ^^g^--^ .,>ii>&y. 



the continent, and as a table luxury in England. In the ^^^^fe' tt*" y 



Ukraine both partridges and pheasants are more abundant ^^Sm^^..^. .j/^I 



than any where else in Europe : they were formerly so com- '^K^^^^ 



mon in France, that Rozier informs us it was necessary to ^^g^^^^^^' .. 



sow three or four times the corn that was necessary to raise a -^.-.;A:v^--,-.vf-.s:*^ ' 

 crop, and that even this had often to be done three or four times in a season. The 



