SUPPLY OF WATER TO YOUNG BIRDS. 131 



drink water contaminated with their own excrement/which 

 is always the case if the water vessels are so constructed 

 that the young can run into them; where such water is 

 used, there can be no doubt of its injurious quality, but I 

 cannot imagine that fresh, clear water can be otherwise than 

 beneficial to the birds. 



A correspondent, who is a most successful breeder of 

 pheasants on a large scale, and whose young stock are in 

 splendid order, writes : " I may give as my opinion that it 

 is perfectly necessary to their health to have fresh spring 

 water. Indeed, my man last year used to go to one particular 

 spring to supply his birds, as it was better water. In their 

 wild state, immediately they are out of the nest, the hen 

 conducts them to the water, and in our wild Devonshire hills, 

 where a streamlet runs in every valley, you can always see 

 the well-defined paths of the broods to and from the water. 

 I have just asked my man, and he tells me that so well are 

 their water-loving propensities known, that poachers in large 

 breeding places always net in dry weather any springs 

 within reach of the coops, and often with success/' Another 

 authority says : " I am strongly opposed to attempting to 

 rear pheasants without water, as against all nature ; but my 

 keeper adheres to his own opinion that for at least some 

 weeks they should have it only once a day, bringing forward 

 cases of broods hatched in dry fields where no water flows. 

 My idea is that in a wild state they can wander in search of 

 dew, and also feed upon more moist and natural food than the 

 egg, meat, and herbs that are chopped for them when reared 

 under hens. I am aware that it is quite a common practice 

 amongst keepers to deprive the little birds of water, and I 

 cannot but feel it to be a cruel as well as a mistaken one. I 

 believe that dry food wants water to aid digestion ; and when 5 

 birds are kept all day in small wired enclosures in the full 

 blaze of the sun, it seems to me that they must require water 

 to keep them healthy ; and I also think that if they have a 

 little always in the pen, they will drink less than when only 



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