208 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



begin to lay till the end of April, but laid very freely, those 

 in one pen averaging over thirty eggs a hen. Virtually all 

 the eggs proved fertile. They hatched extremely well, and 

 the stroog chicks proved fully as easy to rear as those from 

 the ordinary pheasant. They were fed on custard and 

 oatmeal, &c., as recommended by Tegetmeier. They were 

 brought up in fields of standing corn and buckwheat, sur- 

 rounded by wire fences ten feet high, and the farm-yard hens 

 employed as foster mothers were at large in these fields. 

 The birds were pinioned when five days old. I wanted them 

 to be able to fly a little, and severed the wing joint with 

 scissors, so as to leave them with two flight feathers. This 

 has proved a costly blunder, for with only these two flight 

 feathers the birds could fly over the ten feet of wire with the 

 greatest ease. It was quite a business to catch them in 

 October, when I moved into Sussex, and indeed I left several 

 birds in the woods of Conholt Park. Before turning them 

 down in Sussex I removed the two flight feathers from each 

 bird, but despite all precautions some of the birds still fly 

 over the wire. In shooting my woods several were seen, and 

 two were shot,, being mistaken for ordinary wild birds, so 

 well did they fly. Each pen consists of several acres of 

 wood, pasture, and arable land, which will be sown with corn 

 and buckwheat. Only five hens and one (unrelated) cock run 

 to the acre, therefore this breed of pheasant should remain 

 free from all civilised diseases. I may mention that I hnve 

 noticed that the birds are extremely fond of the flower of the 

 common charlock." 



By the courtesy of Colonel Sunderland I had the pleasure 

 of exhibiting at the British Ornithologists' Club, on Wed- 

 nesday, December 16, 1903, a magnificent stuffed specimen 

 of a male Prince of Wales's pheasant, in superb plumage and 

 of great size. It was the first seen that had been reared 

 wild in our coverts during that year. I al?o showed 

 an imported hen in the flesh, which, although it had the 

 whole of the primary feathers of one wing cut off, was. 



