CHAPTER VII. 



MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN CONFINEMENT 

 (CONTINUED). 



LAYING AND HATCHING. 



,^5,.^ 



^W F tlie laying in aviaries tliei-e is but little to be said. 

 sJ Ifi The birds usually drop their eggs about at random, 

 p^'" consequently they should be looked after, and 

 '* collected frequently, so as to prevent as far as 



possible their being broken, which is almost certain to 

 establish the destructive habit of egg eating. Sometimes, 

 however, hen pheasants will take to concealed nests, and 

 instances are not unknown of their sitting and hatching 

 successfully in confinement. A correspondent states : " In 

 1852 I had a cock and three hens in a small place (I will not 

 dignify it by the name of an aviary, for it is open at the top, 

 and the birds are pinioned or have their wings cut) ; one of 

 the hens made a nest, and sat and hatched five young ones. 

 These, unfortunately, the other pheasants killed directly they 

 came from under the mother. In 1853, the same hen sat 

 again on eleven eggs, and hatched seven, when I let her out 

 into my small garden, and a better mother I never saw ; she 

 would allow no strangers to come near her without flying at 

 them. At the end of seven weeks the gapes killed them all. 

 It was a curious sight to see the old pheasant make her nest 

 of ivy-leaves and hay, the former of which she always used to 

 cover lier eggs with when she left her nest, doing so by 



