196 



PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



capable of flying so well as to be sliot in mistake for an 

 ordinary bird. The bens of this species are remarkable 

 for the absence of markings on the breast, and the strongly 

 marked bars on the whole of the flight feathers. I cannot 

 refrain from calling attention to the great success in rearing 

 these birds, which is detailed in Colonel Sunderland's com- 

 munication — a success obviously owing to the size of his 

 pens, and to allowing his young birds to roam at large under 

 their foster parents, and obtain a great part of their own food 

 from the corn, buckwheat, and the artichokes sown in these 

 pens for their use. When will English gamekeepers learn 

 that pheasants reared in this manner are infinitely superior 

 m health, vigour, and hardihood to those that are raised 

 under cooped hens in the ordinary manner, and that the 

 diseases which are so fatal to birds on overcrowded ground 

 are unknown to birds raised under these conditions ? 



■'^-' ^^3yK 



