24 Practical Game Preserving. 



the now well known hydro-incubators as a means for hatching 

 pheasants' eggs, we have no personal experience, but several 

 practical preservers have spoken of their success with them. 

 At present, however, there is no specially made incubator for 

 pheasants' eggs, and more good will be done by relying on a 

 good service of broody hens, of the approved type, than in 

 experimenting with the " new-fangled " hotwater machines. 

 A large amount of ill success in pheasant hatching is due to 

 the unpractical custom so largely obtaining of putting the 

 fowls to sit in hot ill-ventilated hatching, and other houses. 

 The eggs do not receive natural treatment under these 

 conditions, many chicks die in the shell, and many are born 

 of such weakly nature that they are unable to maintain 

 existence. The common fowl, if allowed her own way, 

 chooses a nesting place where there is free access of fresh 

 air and moisture, and no chickens ever reared can compare 

 with those hatched out in a " laid away " nest. How much 

 more this is the case with pheasants is obvious, and in 

 seeking to obtain, as nearly as circumstances will permit, 

 natural surroundings for his pheasant hatching, the preserver 

 gains an important point. 



It must be confessed we cannot well put one sitting hen 

 here and another there, on a hedge-top, in the corner of a 

 grass field, &c. ; regularity and order in the arrangements 

 being necessary. Under the circumstances, where any large 

 number of fowls are set on pheasants' eggs, it is best to 

 contrive a sort of sitting shed in which the various hens can 

 be placed while incubating*. As this is an important point, 

 and one, as we said before, often pregnant with failure, we 

 do not hesitate to recommend a plan of sitting house, which. 



