278 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



a state of natural management, they are advising the most 

 unnatural management possible; but, all the same, a very 

 convenient one, if it could be done. 



The present most accepted method of feeding hand-reared 

 pheasants is to start them on finely grated hard-boiled egg or 

 custard ; in the second stage, to give the latter mixed with fine- 

 ground dry meal, in order to stiffen the custard and render it 

 capable of crumbling. From this stage the birds go on by 

 degrees to receive more meal and less custard, until the time 

 comes to feed them upon boiled oatmeal and boiled rice, as the 

 state of their bowels require a slight alterative. The oatmeal 

 is relaxing,^and the rice just the reverse. From this point to 

 crushed wheat is a long jump, because the latter is not boiled 

 and the two former are. However, to make the consistency of 

 the boiled food more breakable and less sticky, fine flour or 

 oatmeal uncooked will for some time have been shaken into it 

 as the cooked food is pressed through a fine-mesh metal sieve. 

 The object of this is to prevent the food having a stick-jaw 

 tendency, and thus remaining and drying upon the beaks, 

 backs, and legs of the birds. The usual practice is to place the 

 food upon a board for the chicks and to wash the board 

 frequently. There is a possibility that a quick way of spreading 

 disease, when once it exists on the rearing-field, is to throw 

 about food on the ground. There it mixes with the excreta of 

 the birds, and is a possible although unproved source of con- 

 tamination. Dr. Klein proved that fowl enteritis was spread 

 in that manner, and perhaps pheasants take their well-known 

 disease in the same way ; but this has never been investigated 

 by a bacteriologist, and the constant assertions that pheasant 

 enteric is the same disease as fowl enteritis is no more than a 

 guess, and one that is very unlikely to be correct. If it were 

 so, the foster-mothers would be sure to die when the pheasant 

 chicks take the enteric disease and die off in large numbers : only 

 one authentic case of the foster-mothers having died from fowl 

 enteritis has been reported. Then the chicks remained healthy. 

 Fowls nearly always remain healthy when 50 per cent, of the 

 pheasants die off. The foster-mothers in the coops will require 



