14 PRACTICAL PHEASANT REARING. 



factory proceeding ; hens which would sit tight 

 enough at home, in many instances utterly decline 

 to do so when transported, even though the new 

 quarters may appear to the human understanding far 

 preferable to those which the obstinate creatures have 

 just quitted. Others, which are quiet and peaceable 

 in a wisp of straw in a corner chosen by themselves, 

 disdain the superior, and one would imagine more 

 comfortable, accommodation provided in the shape of 

 a cosy box with a waterproof covering to protect the 

 inmate from the storms of heaven ; while others 

 again, most pernicious of all, sit apparently tightly for 

 a few days, and then, when the keeper has just 

 commenced to feel confidence in their fidelity, and 

 ceases to watch them with unremitting vigilance, they 

 calmly stand right up, instead of sitting down in their 

 boxes, and allow the eggs with which they have been 

 intrusted to get thoroughly cold, and of course in 

 consequence irremediably spoiled. Let the keeper 

 beware, also, when he is buying broody hens, that he 

 gets the real article i.e., those just commencing in 

 earnest to sit ; for many and varied are the wiles of 

 the farmer's wife in this England of ours. " Very 

 sorry, Mr. Velveteens," she will say, and her smile it 

 is childlike and bland ; " I have not got any cluck hens 

 for you to-day ; but, if you will call again in a week, 

 there will be six or seven at your disposal." The 

 victim retires, and again appears at the appointed 

 time, to receive what he imagines to be a nice batch 



