TREATING OF THE PHEASANT AND ITS EGG. 3 



tested method of treatment for the eggs, when 

 bought, will not only benefit the purchaser, but save 

 the unfortunate vendor from unmerited obloquy in 

 multitudinous instances. Often and often do com- 

 plaints reach the manager of my game farm of the 

 badness or unfertility of a certain batch of eggs, 

 which we knew to have been fresh laid, to have been 

 sent away most carefully packed with all the skill 

 that constant practice gives, and also that eggs of the 

 same batch from the same pens have hatched out a 

 splendid average at home. The fault must be in 

 their treatment at the other end ; for a railway journey, 

 although it certainly does not improve the fertility of 

 the eggs, does not in reality do nearly as much harm 

 as is generally supposed ; and if game preservers 

 would more often take the advice so constantly 

 impressed upon them, and go to the little extra 

 expense of sending their keepers to personally carry 

 home, side by side with themselves in a second or 

 third class railway carriage, the eggs that have perhaps 

 some hundreds of miles to travel, there would, I feel, 

 certain, be still fewer complaints upon this score. 

 Indeed, to protect ourselves from unmerited animad- 

 versions, we have now for some time made it an 

 invariable rule to " set " and hatch out, and note the 

 average of fertility of, a certain number of eggs from 

 every batch, be it small or large, that leaves Rhiwlas 

 Game Farm. 



Trusting that my readers will good-naturedly pardon 

 B 2 



