104 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



consists of barley meal of the best quality, boiled eggs rubbed 

 through a coarse sieve ; white biscuit meal is also used, and 

 some crissel is rubbed up with it. 



There are no bottoms to the coops, which are always 

 moved on to fresh ground twice a day, morning and night, 

 so that the young birds never rest on foul ground. The 

 fronts are not closely shut up, as is too often the case, but a 

 board is placed against them, and they are painted white, a 

 colour which, being- strange, is not appreciated by foxes. 



The covert annually yields about 2000 head of game, 

 which must be owing to the good management, inasmuch as 

 the soil is heavy, and in wet Aveather particularly damp. No 

 quack remedies are used in the feeding of these birds, which 

 are amply supplied with grit, the particular variety employed 

 being fine granite gtit. This is most greedily eaten by the 

 birds, and is purchased by the truck load. Granite contains, 

 in addition to the extremely hard quartz, which assists in the 

 grinding of the food in the gizzard, other minerals essential 

 to healthy growth, such as lime, potash, iron, &c., in the form 

 of felspar and mica. There is another point to which I may 

 call attention. At the end of the season the head keeper 

 carefully goes round the coverts, and any bird that he can 

 detect that shows the slightest sign of having been wounded, 

 or that is not in the pink of condition, is at once despatched, 

 so as to leave nothing but healthy and vigorous birds to breed 

 from. 



Now, it may be asked, to what is the long continued 

 success of the pheasants on this estate due. There can be but 

 one answer. To the good sanitary arrangements, to the 

 rational method of feeding and management adopted by an 

 unusually intelligent keeper. So far from the system being 

 expensive it is exceedingly economical, and the result is as 

 satisfactory as it is possible to conceive, for there are more 

 strong, vigorous, and healthy birds produced on this estate in 

 proportion to the acreage than in any othei- ttat I am 

 acquainted Avith. On several of the estates not far distant, 



