so 



Game and Foxes. 



It may appear a peculiar argument to advance, 

 but it is undoubtedly unwise for a rearer desirous 

 of producing pheasants in a hunting country to 

 resort for his eggs to an estate on which a fox is 

 never seen. In the Eastern Counties, where foxes 

 are not preserved, pheasants juk to a far greater 

 extent than they do elsewhere, as may be seen if 

 the ground is walked over by day or night, and the 

 instinct to roost is decidedly less marked. It is 

 only reasonable to suppose that what the parent 

 birds do is transmitted to their offspring, and that 

 chicks hatched from eggs procured from a non- 

 hunting district will grow into pheasants very 

 difficult to persuade to go to roost. Limited 

 experiments in the direction indicated have proved 

 this contention to have some foundation, so it is 

 advanced in all good faith. 



Wild-bred pheasants are far more wary of foxes 

 than those hand-reared, and suffer far fewer 

 losses ; the latter have been protected by human 

 agency all through their youth, and when thrown 

 on their own resources after removal to covert are 

 foolish and devoid of the protective instinct which 

 the wild bird has imbibed from its parent. The 

 w>ld bird all through its youth ma) have had 

 experience of foxes, has run many risks, and 

 arrives at maturity fortified by knowledge of 



