164 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



some of them roosted in the trees in which they 

 fed. I had several birds that had been starved to 

 death sent to me for dissection, and not one of 

 them had a piece of gravel in its gizzard. The 

 crop of one female, which had apparently died just 

 after feeding, contained no less than 4,225 buds 

 and small pieces of slender twigs. Some idea may 

 be gathered of the privations these poor birds had 

 to endure when it is mentioned that one male sent 

 me only turned the scale at sixteen and a half 

 ounces. He came from Upper Swaledale, where 

 the late Mr. George Brook, an exceedingly careful 

 observer, killed male birds in the late autumn 

 weighing twenty-eight and even up to thirty-two 

 ounces. 



The accompanying illustration represents a friend 

 of ours and his loader in the act of shooting driven 

 Grouse on one of the best moors in the North of 

 England. 



Pheasant rearing is the most important business 

 of a woodland gamekeeper's life. The eggs are 

 gathered from hedgebanks and woods and placed 

 under barn-door fowls in hatching-boxes, which are 

 all numbered and dated on the lid or door, so that 

 the keeper in charge can tell when the chicks are 

 due to appear. The picture on p. 167, representing 

 a pheasant hatchery, was obtained on one of the 

 largest and best preserved mixed game estates in 

 England. In front of the hatching-boxes was a 

 double row of wooden pegs driven into the ground, 

 to each of which was attached a piece of string with 

 a running noose at the end. When the fowls were 

 taken off the nests to be fed the noose was slipped 

 over one foot, and the string being so arranged in 

 regard to length as to prevent one bird from inter- 

 fering with another, quarrelling and stealing each 



