276 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



time, it is always unwise to set up theory when nature is offering 

 us free education. The survival of the fittest has evolved a bird 

 that begins to lay generally about the 7th or I4th of April ; that 

 begins to incubate from about May 1st to the 7th, and to hatch 

 out from about May 24th to ist of June. Obviously this is because 

 birds hatched much later than this have died out in natural 

 surroundings, probably from being unable to stand our winters 

 in their immature state of plumage. No doubt, also, eggs 

 laid much before the earlier date have not produced chicks in 

 sufficient numbers to alter the habits of the birds. Various 

 kinds of forcing can be made to extend the breeding period 

 at both ends, but there is a desire to increase the number of 

 pheasants reared by their own mothers in the wild state, and 

 there is every reason to believe that forcing of any sort would 

 reduce the proportion of hen pheasants capable of raising a good 

 brood in the open fields. They are not very successful, and the 

 reason that has generally been accepted is that they are bad 

 mothers, and go wandering aimlessly on as long as a single 

 chick is left to follow. As a matter of fact this is not the reason. 

 The young partridges and wild ducks in the rearing-fields leave 

 the coops and hunt for food in broods, but the young pheasant 

 hunts, or rather wanders, each for itself, careless of the presence 

 of its fellows. This is how it happens that in the wild state the 

 hen pheasant cannot shepherd her chicks. She cannot, like 

 them, be everywhere at once. So the thunderstorm finds many 

 young unprotected by the mother's wing; the hawks and the 

 crows have no mother to beat off before they can dine on young 

 pheasants, which they have only to find alone in order to kill 

 with ease. But the worst enemy to young pheasants is long 

 wet ground vegetation. They have to run about in it to get 

 their natural food, and if it were not for the frequent recurrence 

 of the mother's brooding wing they would perish of cold. In 

 the rearing-fields the constant changes of young birds from one 

 coop and foster-mother to another show how often death would 

 overtake the lost birds were there not a house of call at every 

 few yards. Obviously any cross bred that has the instinct to 

 hunt for food in broods or collectively, and not in units, would 



