36 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS 



management on your part, because the eggs from th e 

 same batch as yours met in the dealer's hands with 

 such wonderful success a statement often made to 

 silence the purchaser who grumbles about his eggs 

 not being so satisfactory as they might be. 



(2.) Send a reliable man to fetch the eggs home, 

 and, if possible, let it be arranged that he can see 

 them picked up fresh in the pens. The addition of a 

 hundred or two birds to your credit (owing to a careful 

 transit of the egg boxes) will, from the sport they 

 show and the additional hens you obtain, probably 

 recompense the journey of your emissary. 



(3.) Purchase early eggs ; they are the best, and 

 hatch the healthiest birds, as they are the first and 

 strongest product of the hens, and not the last and 

 most exhausted. 



There is but about II. between eggs laid the end 

 of April and the late ones of May, but 100 of the 

 former are worth quite 130 of the latter in the case 

 of penned birds. The difference in the first cost is 

 soon recouped by the larger, stronger broods that 

 result from good early eggs, and, what is more, these 

 give you full-grown, fast-flying birds by the end of 

 October, and hens that usually lay their first season 

 a considerable gain this to their owner. 



(4.) When you have a choice of dealers, purchase 

 the eggs from the man who keeps his pheasants for 

 laying in the largest aviaries. Eggs produced by the 

 orthodox system of five hens and a cock in a little 



