PHEASANTS BREEDING HOUSE. 139 



are bad, and set the same hen or hens again, if sitting 

 hens should not be plenty. 



The hens having sat 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 over 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 each 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 grass-plot, or else- 

 where, observing to shift them with the sun, and 

 out of the cold winds ; they should 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 distem- 

 per to which they are liable) in your choice of a 

 situation for breeding the birds up ; and be less 

 afraid of foxes, dogs, pole-cats, and all sorts of ver- 

 min, than the distemper. I 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 

 I mean 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 



