Pheasants Maintenance and Increase. 21 



mating time comes on. At first they will require feeding 

 a little, but it is best to let them eventually find their 

 way with the rest, and so spread well about. 



One of the greatest aids to a natural increase of birds 

 is thorough elimination of all kinds of vermin from the 

 coverts. It has always been a maxim with preservers that 

 " to kill vermin is to breed game ;" and unless all furred and 

 feathered varmints are well killed down, there is no chance 

 of maintaining a stock of pheasants, much less increasing it. 

 Poaching, of course, must be kept down, and not only actual 

 night poaching, but the systematic robbery of birds and eggs 

 which will obtain if the preserver does not properly look 



after his coverts. 



\ 



A more extended consideration of these several points we 

 must, however, leave for the present, and return to them in 

 the chapter on General Management. 



