1093 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. . Part III. 



7530. Varieties. Besides that which may be considered common or wild in this country, and which is 

 generally of a brown colour, there is the gold and stiver, natives of China, and very hardy in this country, 

 and good breeders. The ring-necks, natives of Tatary, bred in China, very scarce; their plumage very 

 beautiful. The white and pied ; both sorts will intermix readily with our common breed, as will the 

 Bohemia, one of the most beautiful of its kind, and equally scarce. The golden variety is generally of 

 the highest price, and the common most hardy, and of the largest size. 



7551. Breeding. In a wild state the hen pheasant lays from eighteen to twenty eggs in a season, but 

 seldom more than ten in a state of confinement. As this bird has not hitherto been domesticated, and as 

 the flesh of those brought up in the house is much inferior to that of the wild pheasant, they are chiefly 

 bred for show, for replenishing a park, or for turning out in well enclosed recluse scenes, which they will 

 not readily leave if well fed, and not much disturbed. Hence every proprietor may naturalise them at 

 least on a part of his grounds ; say, for example, a wood with glades of pasture enclosed by a close paling 

 car high wall. The natural nest of the pheasant is made on the ground, and composed of dry grass and 

 leaves, which being provided for her in confinement, she will always arrange properly. They will breed 

 freely with the common fowl; but as neither flesh nor form are improved by the cross, this is seldom 

 resorted to. 



7552. In stocking a pheasantry, the general mode is to procure eggs from some establishment of this 

 sort or otherwise; and the following are the directions of Castang, a.s given in Mowbray's Treatise on 

 Poultry : Eggs being provided, put them under a hen that has kept the nest three or four days ; and if 

 you set two or three hens on the same day, you will have the advantage of shifting the good eggs. At the 

 end of ten or twelve days, throw away those that are bad, and set the same hen or hens again, if setting- 

 hens should not be plenty. The hens having set their full time, such of the young pheasants as are already 

 hatched put into a basket, with a piece of flannel, till the hen has done hatching. The brood now come, 

 put under a frame with a net o^er it, and a place for the hen, that she cannot get to the young pheasants, 

 but that they may go to her ; and feed them with boiled egg cut small, boiled milk and bread, alum curd, 

 ants' eggs, a little of eacli sort, and often. After two or three days they will be acquainted with the call 

 of the hen that hatched them, may have their liberty to run on the grassplat, or elsewhere, observing to 

 shift them with the sun, and out of the cold winds ; they need not have their liberty in the morning till 

 the sun is up; and they must be shut in with the hen in good time in the evening. Every thing now 

 going on properly, you must be very careful (in order to guard against the distemper to which they are 

 liable) in your choice of a situation for breeding the birds up; and be less afraid of foxes, dogs, polecats, 

 and all sorts of vermin, than the distemper. Castang had rather encounter all the former than the latter; 

 for those with care may be prevented, but the distemper once got in is like the plague, and destroys all your 

 hopes. What he means by a good situation is nothing more than a place where no poultry, pheasants, or 

 turkeys, &c. have ever been kept; such as the warm side of a field, orchard, pleasure-ground, or garden, 

 or even on a common, or a good green lane under circumstances of this kind, or by a wood side ; but then 

 it is proper for a man to keep with them, under a temporary hovel, and to have two or three dogs cliained 

 at a proper distance, with a lamp or two at night. He has known a great number of pheasants bred up in 

 this manner in the most exposed situations. It is proper for the man always to have a gun, that he may 

 keep ofl' the hawks, owls, jays, magpies, &c. The dogs and lamps shy the foxes more than any thing ; 

 and the dogs will give tongue for the man to be on his guard if smaller vermin are near, or when strollers 

 make their appearance. The birds going on as before mentioned, should so continue till Septemberf or 

 (if very early bred) the middle of August. Before they begin to shift their long feathers in the tail, they 

 are to be shut up in the basket with the hen regularly every night ; and when they begin to shift their 

 tail the birds are large, and begin to lie out ; that is, they are not willing to come to be shut up in the 

 basket : those that are intended to be turned out wild should be taught to perch (a situation they have 

 never been used to) ; this is done by tying a string to the hen's leg, and obliging her to sit in a tree all 

 night : be sure you put her in the tree before sunset ; and if she falls down, you must persevere in putting 

 her up again till she is contented with her situation; then the young birds will follow the hen, and perch 

 with her. This being done, and the country now covered with corn, fruits, and shrubs, &c. they will 

 shifl for themselves. For such young pheasants as you make choice of for your breeding-stock at home, 

 and likewise to turn out in spring following, provide a new piece of ground, large and roomy for two pens, 

 where no pheasants, &c. have been kept, and there put your young birds in as they begin to shift their 

 tails. Such of them as you intend to turn out at a future time, or in another place, put into one pen 

 netted over, and leave their wings as they are ; and those you wish to keep for breeding put into the other 

 pen, cutting one wing of each bird. The gold and silver pheasants you must pen earlier, or they will be 

 ofS Cut the wing often ; and when first penned feed all your young birds with barley-meal, dough, corn, 

 and plenty of green turnips. 



7553. A receipt to make alum curd. Take new milk, as much as your young birds require, and boil it 

 with a lump of alum, so as not to make the curd hard and tough, but custard-like. Give a little of this 

 curd twice a day, and ants' eggs after every time they have had a sufficient quantity of the other food. 

 If they do not eat heartily, give them some ants' eggs to create an appetite, but by no means in such abun- 

 dance as to be considered their food. The distemper alluded to above is not improbably of the same 

 nature as the roup in chickens, contagious, and dependent on the state of the weather, and for preven- 

 tion requiring similar precautions. When a pheasantry is connected with a piece of ground covered with 

 bushes or shrubbery, the birds may be bred in houses or pens, and afterwards put out into small enclo- 

 sures, say one hundred feet square, with fences twelve feet high, each containing abundance of low ever- 

 greens, especially the spruce fir, and an artificial or natural supply of water. Under such an arrangement 

 the hen pheasant will hatch her own eggs, and the following directions are given as to attendance by the 

 same experienced person : Not more than four hens to be allowed in the pens to one cock. And in the 

 out covers, three hens to one cock may be sufficient, with the view of allowing for accidents, such as the 

 loss of a cock or hen. Never put more eggs under a hen than she can well and closely cover, the eggs 

 fresh and carefully preserved. Short broods to be joined and shifted to one hen. Common hen pheasants 

 in close pens, and'with plenty of cover, will sometimes make their nests and hatch their own eggs : but 

 they seldom succeed in rearing their brood, being so naturally shy ; whence, should this method be desired, 

 they must be left entirely to themselves, as they feel alarm even in being looked at. Eggs for setting are 

 generally ready in April. Period of incubation, the same in the pheasant as in the common hen. Phea- 

 sants, like the pea-fowl, will clear grounds of insects and reptiles, but will spoil all wall-trees within their 

 reach, by picking off every bud and leaf 



7554. Feeding. Strict cleanliness to be observed, the meat not to be tainted with dung, and the water 

 to be pure and often renewed. Ants' eggs being scarce, hog-lice, ear- wigs, or any insect may be given ; 

 or artificial ants' eggs substituted, composed of flour beaten up with an egg and shell together, the pellets 

 rubbed between the fingers to the proper size. After the first three weeks, in a scarcity of ants' eggs, 

 Castang gives a few gentles, procured from a good liver tied up, the gentles when ready dropping into a 

 pan or box of bran ; to be given sparingly, and not considered as common food. Food for grown phea- 

 sants, barley or wheat ; generally the same as for other poultry. In a cold spring hempseed, or other 

 warming seeds are comfortable, and will forward the breeding stock. 



7555. In keeping fancy pheasants, as the gold, silver, or other breeds, the best mode is to enclose a few 

 poles of ground containing trees and bushes with a well painted copper netting, and in some concealed 

 part to have a house or lodge for supplying water and food. This forms by far the most elegant aviary, 

 and is the only one that at all times appears clean. They will thrive very well, however, in an aviary on 

 the common construction. 



