284 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



give a little if it could be cheaply obtained. Very little in the 

 way of animal food comes amiss to the wild pheasant, which 

 has been known to eat mice, wire worms by the thousand, slugs 

 0f all sorts, snails with shells and snails without, frogs, blind 

 worms, and young vipers. 



The greatest misfortune about penned pheasants is that they 

 take no exercise. As gallinaceous birds they ought to scratch 

 for a living, and that is difficult to arrange in movable pens on 

 turf. It is quite possible that they would be more healthy upon 

 ploughed fields, especially if a part of their daily grain was 

 raked in before they were removed to the fresh ground, but in 

 that case they would lose the plucking of grass and clover. 



Pens with open tops and birds with one wing clipped have 

 been recommended in order that the wild cocks should visit the 

 penned hens, but whether it has ever succeeded or is merely a 

 pretty theory the author is not aware : he does know that it has 

 often failed, and infertile eggs have been the consequence. 



It is questionable whether the cocks go to the hens as much 

 as is believed. In the author's experience of pheasants, it has 

 been the hens that have been attracted by the crowing of the 

 cocks. He has known newly established laying pens to draw 

 hen pheasants in numbers to ground that they never before 

 nested upon. Whether they would have entered the pens if 

 they had been open at the top is doubtful, but many of them 

 laid outside and had infertile eggs. After all, what is the crow 

 given to the cock for if he cannot make any use of it ? 



There is some difference of opinion as to whether most 

 success follows the incubation of pen produced or of wood 

 produced eggs. 



This is only to be answered with reservations. There is no 

 doubt that 90 per cent, of fairly early eggs from well kept 

 penned birds will be fertile. There are two reasons against as 

 large a proportion from home covert birds. First, the latter are 

 picked up less often, and run more risk from night frosts. 

 Second, you may leave a large proportion of cocks and yet 

 lose most of them by their straying off for miles with favourite 

 hens. 



