TURKEY HENS AS REARERS. 117 



compass by the jolting of the journey, and the eggs 

 frequently come into contact and are broken. 



Sometimes circumstances may occur in which it is desir- 

 able to exchange the eggs of fowls and pheasants temporarily ; 

 there is no difficulty in so doing. Pheasants' and partridges' 

 eggs may be taken from their nests, and others substituted. 

 The exchanged eggs may be placed under common hens. 

 As soon as the pheasants' eggs show symptoms of hatching, 

 they are replaced in those nests which have not been 

 forsaken, with very good results. The exchange is much 

 more likely to succeed with pheasants than partridges ; 

 with the former it is almost a certainty. The advantages 

 are many, and all on the keeper's side, as he may turn out 

 with the old birds larger broods than they otherwise would 

 have hatched. 



In those cases in which the nest of the pheasant is in a 

 situation likely to be disturbed, the plan may be advan- 

 tageous ; but, in ordinary circumstances, the eggs had better 

 be left unmolested, as the hen pheasant is almost certain to 

 bring off a larger number of chicks than would result if the 

 eggs were shifted under a farmyard hen. 



In some parts of Germany turkey hens are employed to 

 hatch pheasants ; the eggs are collected and placed under 

 the hens, which make excellent mothers, and are capable of 

 hatching and rearing twice the number of poults that a barn- 

 door hen can raise. From the great success that' has attended 

 the introduction into England of the American plan of 

 allowing turkey hens to lay, sit, and rear their young in the 

 open, I should strongly advise the placing of pheasants 

 eggs in the nest of a turkey hen that has sat herself in some 

 hedgerow or covert, and letting her rear the young pheasants, 

 uncooped, and at perfect liberty. 



Mr. Rowland Ward, a very practical pheasant rearer, 

 writes as follows : " I wish someone interested in the rearing 

 of pheasants would set a turkey on some of their eggs, and 

 when these have been hatched out allow the old bird to roam 



