88 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



by rail from the granite quarries, solely for the use of their 

 pheasants. 



There is one point on which almost all treatises on the 

 management of pheasants are lamentably deficient, namely, 

 in enforcing the absolute necessity for a constant supply 

 of fresh green vegetable food. The tender grasses in small 

 pens are soon eaten, and the birds, pining for fresh vege- 

 table diet, become irritable, feverish, and take to plucking 

 each other's feathers. To prevent this, cabbages, turnip 

 leaves still better, waste lettuces from the garden, when 

 going to seed should be supplied as fast as they are eaten ; 

 the smaller the pen the greater the necessity for this supply. 

 The late Dr. Jerdon, the distinguished author of " The Birds 

 of India/' when visiting the pheasantries in the Zoological 

 Gardens, said, in his emphatic manner, " You are not giving 

 these birds enough vegetable food. Lettuce ! Lettuce ! ! 

 Lettuce ! ! ! " From my long experience in breeding galli- 

 naceous birds of different species, I can fully indorse his 

 recommendations. 



Should these cultivated vegetables be not readily obtained, 

 a good supply of fresh cut turves, with abundance of young 

 grass and plenty of clover, should be furnished daily. 



Instead of placing a cock and three to five hens in a pen, 

 as recommended, some persons advocate putting cut- winged 

 hens only in enclosures open at the top, so that they may be 

 visited by the wild males. This method can only be followed 

 in the vicinity of well-stocked coverts, and even under these 

 conditions it is not always successful, the eggs frequently not 

 being fertilised. A very practical correspondent writes as 

 follows : "It is sometimes recommended to put pheasant hens 

 into small enclosures open at the top, so that the wild cocks 

 might get to them. I suppose generally that plan is 

 successful, but in my own case it has failed entirely. I had 

 plenty of eggs, but no chickens. My keeper gathered the 

 eggs regularly and carefully, and they were duly set under 

 common hens ; but not one single egg came off. I know the 



