ii. PHEASANT REARING (PART /) 33 



the web between two of the toes of every tame one 

 before turning out. The smallest division will do, 

 as the snick made cannot unite, and will be evidence, 

 when a bird is shot as a full-grown one, of its 

 origin. 



Should you endeavour to maintain more hen 

 pheasants in your coverts than the latter will hold, 

 off they go with the cocks for miles in the spring, as, 

 however well you feed them, they will stray for their 

 natural food, and nest near it, if they do not find it 

 at home. If there are too many hens crowded 

 together in a wood, they will also stray in the 

 breeding season for the sake of seclusion. 



If you turn out an extra number of birds from 

 an aviary to meet losses by the hens straying in the 

 spring, you will lose them just the same eventually, 

 if the ground will not support them. 



If you can keep in your coverts, as a breeding 

 stock, sixty to seventy hen pheasants to a thousand 

 acres of wood and agricultural land, you will do well ; 

 if you can keep a hundred, very well indeed. 



You may expect to gather 800 eggs per 100 wild 

 hen pheasants if it is easy to find their nests, but 

 not more than 600 if it is difficult to do so from the 

 ground being rough and uncultivated, or the woods 

 very extensive. 



Five to six hens to one cock is ample. Even in a 

 wild state you will obtain better eggs from this pro- 

 portion, and the hens are more likely to rear second 



II D 



