3O LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS 



By this plan of action you can more easily place a 

 number of good eggs under your farm hens at one 

 time, so that by hatching out together the young birds 

 may give less trouble in supervision. 



You can examine a nest every four or five days, 

 and if the eggs are not added to supposing there to 

 be ten to twelve, or there are any feathers in the nest 

 gather at once, as this is a sign the bird intends 

 to sit. 



Should a hen pheasant desert her nest from a too 

 frequent inspection when she has laid a few eggs 

 say five or six she will make a new nest farther off 

 (where you may not find it), and after laying in it 

 four or five more eggs, will sit on these, and there's 

 an end of her usefulness for the year. 



If, however, you wait till she has fully laid up, and 

 then take a full nest of eggs just before the bird 

 intends to sit, she will probably start de novo, by 

 constructing a new nest and filling it with her second 

 hatch of seven to eight eggs, which, from being laid 

 later in the year, she is more likely to do well with if 

 they hatch out. 



Gather eggs up to May 20, and then sweep off 

 with all you can find, and ' set ' them as soon as you 

 can. (Birds hatched from eggs laid the end of May or 

 beginning of June are seldom sufficiently grown by 

 the middle of November to fly well.) If a pheasant has 

 four or five eggs in her nest at that date, it is probable 



