280 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



It should be of grass, and so large that the birds' constant 

 treadings do not destroy the growth. A level piece of ground 

 without shelter is to be avoided. Dry banks, bushes, and 

 basking and dusting mounds, as well as a heap of grit, are 

 desirable. 



Some people have had good results by leaving the birds in 

 a pen of this sort to lay, and have found that a number of cocks 

 amongst five times as many hens have not destroyed all chances 

 of success by their fighting. But the usual plan is to make 

 small pens large enough for each to contain five hens and a 

 cock. Pens of 4 yards by 10, and 6 feet high, made of wire 

 netting, are big enough, but they cannot be too large for the 

 health of the birds, and as they last many years without re- 

 moval, if the ground is dug up and limed at the end of each 

 laying season, the expense of the first building is spread over 

 fifteen or twenty years. 



These pens are most cheaply made in close contact, for then 

 two of the sides will serve a double purpose, for each will be 

 a boundary for two pens. For 3 feet upwards from the 

 ground the pens should either be turfed or made of corrugated 

 iron, in order to afford shelter and prevent war with 

 neighbours. 



Another kind of laying pen most approved of late years, 

 although success came before its invention, is that of the 

 movable pen. These pens need not be more than a couple of 

 feet high, but they have to be covered over, whereas if the birds 

 have one wing brailed this is not necessary with the other kind 

 of pen. Full-winged pheasants damage themselves seriously 

 by flying against the wire netting roof of a pen, and even when 

 roofs are made of string netting the shock birds receive on 

 impact must be nearly as bad as those that kill netted grouse 

 upon the same kind of netting. The object of these small light 

 movable pens is to give the birds fresh ground every day. But 

 the moving must be an enormous undertaking where many 

 pheasants are kept, and it is conceivable that those who sell 

 half a million eggs in the year, and want 5000 pens for the 

 purpose, do not move them very often. 



