Pheasants Breeding and Rearing. 1 1 



a good healthy growth of verdure, while if it be possible to 

 send a small ditch of running water through the enclosure 

 so much the better, both for the birds and their keeper. 

 The birds, in the proportion of one cock to six hens, must 

 be turned down in the pen about the end of February (there 

 is no gain in confining them earlier), having been first either 

 pinioned or had their wings cut. For our part, we should 

 prefer the cutting, although it entails an almost fortnightly 

 clipping, but the advantage is gained that you can eventually 

 turn your birds away later in the season. Those who prefer 

 to cover over the pen with rabbit or hare netting can, of 

 course, do so, and the plan is unmistakably to be recom- 

 mended in spite of the fact that the birds in their perverse 

 desire to fly upward occasionally become entangled in the 

 meshes and injured, if not killed. Taking all the circum- 

 stances into consideration, we incline towards the adoption 

 of a covering of netting. 



Pinioning pheasants is oftimes made an unnecessarily cruel 

 operation by some who assert that it is indispensable that the 

 wing should be taken off up to the second joint. This is 

 a mistaken notion, for, provided the wire fencing of the pen 

 is six feet or over, the only pinioning necessary is to remove 

 the point of the wing. To effect this the wing must be held 

 extended by one person, while another, with a very sharp 

 knife, severs the first joint, and then by a sharp twist it is 

 wrenched off. The operation seems to cause the bird but 

 little pain, and the use of some cold salt and water will 

 prove a sufficiently healing application. Birds pinioned thus 

 are rarely able to get over an 8ft. fence, but if it really be 

 found necessary, the second joint of the wing is the one at 



