14 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



in tlie groand. Afror depositing lier eggs (usually about 

 'eight or nine in number) slie is deserted by the male, and the 

 task of incubation and rearing the young depends on her 

 alone. The eggs vary in colour from a greenish brown to a 

 greyish green; in size they are, on the average, an inch and 

 five-sixths in length, by an inch and five- twelfths in width. 

 The period of incubation is twenty-four days. 



Hen pheasants, like common fowls, not unfrcquently have 

 nests in common, in which case as many as eighteen or 

 twenty eggs will be found together. {Sometimes three hens 

 will take to the same nest, and as many as thirty eggs have 

 been seen resulting from their co-partnership. It is still 

 more singular that the pheasant and the partridge often share 

 the same nest. (See Zoologist, 1886, p. 295, in which volume 

 also will be found mention of a pheasant and wild duck sharing 

 the same nest.) Mr. Walter Yate, of Pemberton, Shropshire, 

 stated, "About a week ago one of my workmen informed me 

 that he had found a nest containing both partridge's and 

 pheasant's eggs. I accompanied him to the place, and 

 'there saw the pheasant and partridge seated side by side 

 ^with the utmost amity. I then had the birds driven off, and 

 saw fifteen partridge's and sixteen pheasant's eggs laid 

 'indiscriminately together. The eggs were placed as though 

 •the nest had been common to both." Another correspondent 

 ■writes : "About three weeks ago, when v^alking round a 

 small wood belonging to me, and in which I usually breed a 

 good sprinkle of pheasants, I discovered a partridge sitting 

 on the edge of the bank of the wood; and when she went off 

 to feed I was much astonished to find that she was sitting on 

 nine pheasant's eggs and thirteen of her own, and, after sitting 

 the usual time, hatched them all out." Mr. E,. Bagnall-Wild 

 records that "in June his keeper noticed three partridge 

 nests, with thirteen, eleven, and eleven partridges' eggs, and 

 four, two, and two pheasants' respectively, in them. He 

 carefully watched, and in all three cases found that the 

 pheasants were hatched with the young partridges; and in 



