98 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



and win the favours of his fickle fair ones. T 

 obtained an immense number of eggs during that 

 season, which proved unusually productive. No 

 further care was necessary than to provide the 

 birds with a sufficiency of food and to remove the 

 eggs every day which, by the way, were never 

 deposited in a nest, but dropped here and there 

 in different parts of the enclosure. Thus, from 

 what I regarded at the time as a succession of 

 untoward accidents, I became acquainted with 

 the most effectual, because the most natural way 

 of keeping hen-pheasants with a view to obtain- 

 ing a constant and ample supply of prolific eggs 

 during the breeding-season. Every gamekeeper's 

 cottage in the heart of a preserve must possess in 

 its neighbourhood much greater facilities for the 

 undertaking than were within my own reach. 

 My expectations, I confess, were far exceeded; 

 and if what I have now written should be the 

 means of inducing others to follow my example 

 on a larger scale, I shall rejoice, not only in 

 having been fortunate enough to confer a real 

 benefit on the preservers of game, but still more 

 in having been enabled though indirectly to 

 inflict ( a heavy blow and great discouragement ' 

 on the nefarious traffic of the egg-stealer the 

 most destructive and unpardonable of all the 

 numerous devices of modern poaching. 



