20 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



1875,, as my curate was returning from taking the duty in a 

 neighbouring church,, a hen pheasant started from the road- 

 side hedge close to the town, and fluttered before him. While 

 watching her movements he saw eleven young pheasants, 

 apparently newly hatched, fluttering in the hedge, and at the 

 edge of a pond close by. They soon scrambled into some 

 cover, and the mother bird flew off to rejoin them from 

 another quarter. I understand, from inquiry, that this is not 

 a solitary instance of such an early brood of pheasants in 

 South Devon." 



On the other hand, examples of nests deferred until very 

 late in the year are not unknown. Mr. W. W. Blest, of 

 Biddenden, near Staplehurst, writes: "Whilst partridge 

 shooting on September 3, 1874, we disturbed a sitting 

 pheasant, the nest containing twelve eggs. We often hear 

 of the early nesting of game birds, but rarely so late in 

 the season." On October 1, 1894, a nest with eight eggs 

 was found in a turnip field in Forfarshire. In October, 1869, 

 Mr. Walter R. Tyrell, of Plash wood, near Stowmarket, 

 forwarded to me a young pheasant, with the following letter : 

 " When pheasant shooting with some friends yesterday, the 

 15th inst., in this neighbourhood, one of the keepers picked 

 up dead, in a path in the wood we were in, a very young chick 

 pheasant ; it could not have been hatched more than a week. 

 My keeper tells me he has found them (but very rarely) as 

 young in September. I forward the young chick to you, in 

 order that you may inspect it." I carefully examined the 

 young bird, which was not more than two or three days old. 

 On October 20, 1900, Mr. A. Dunnage, of Colchester, forwarded 

 to me a pheasant chick, one of a brood in a hedgerow, not 

 near to any covert. These late-hatched birds were in all 

 probability the produce of a second laying during the 

 season. 



The artificial state in which these birds exist, as supplied 

 with nutritive food and protected in our coverts and preserves, 

 leads to other departures from their natural conditions. Thus 



