56 GALLINACEOUS BIRDS 



but my informant added : " It does seem a little funny, 

 does it not? " I replied that it did ! 



The domestic hens are found to be valuable assistants 

 in the raising of young pheasants. The eggs laid by 

 the pheasants are removed and placed under the hens in 

 little boxes in a house, where many hens may be seen 

 at once sitting on as many as twenty eggs each. The 

 little chicks with their foster-mothers are put out in 

 coops where the chicks can run about in the grass. 

 Pheasants are polygamous and one cock is usually 

 penned with a number of hens. If more than one cock 

 is placed in an inclosure they will spend much of their 

 time in fighting, since they are very pugnacious. Wal- 

 lace Evans, of the game propagating farm near Chicago, 

 says that if the cocks are permitted to occupy the same 

 inclosure during the breeding season they will fight al- 

 most constantly, to the utter neglect of their conjugal 

 duties. The hens commence laying about April 15th, 

 the date depending somewhat upon the weather; and 

 each hen lays from fifty to seventy-five eggs in a season 

 if properly fed and cared for, thus furnishing the breeder 

 with several settings of eggs every spring. The eggs 

 are gathered daily and set under the hens sometimes as 

 late as July. The period of incubation is about twenty- 

 one days. The young birds are fed on boiled custard 

 for a few days. Mr. Evans advises the removal of the 

 foster-mother and her brood when the poults are some 

 three or four days old, and that their food be changed 

 slightly ; the custard being fed once daily and one meal 

 being of finely chopped hard-boiled eggs. As the poults 

 begin to show strength a small quantity of the smaller 

 grains — such as cracked wheat, millet, etc., should be 



