286 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



other males left behind would have four hens each ; where 

 five hens were designed, the real proportion in the cover would 

 be eight hens to a cock ; and where the design was to leave 

 eight hens, the real proportion would be fourteen hens to a cock 

 after the strayers had left in similar proportions. 



It may be replied that keepers should prevent straying, 

 but, on the contrary, it is just what is wanted, and it has come 

 to be the best and most fashionable preservation to en- 

 courage it. 



Those who know best act in the belief that every cock 

 pheasant that gets away with one or two hens will become the 

 sire of one or two good broods, and they know, too, that those 

 that remain with many more in coverts have not the breeding 

 instinct fully developed, and that if they have chicks the com- 

 petition for natural food will be too great for the welfare of any. 

 In other words, the old birds will eat up the insect life before 

 the chicks come. 



Pheasant preservers have in their minds the preservation at 

 Lord Leicester's, at Holkham, in Norfolk ; that also at Euston, 

 the Duke of Grafton's, in Suffolk ; that at Beaulieu, in Hamp- 

 shire, and have become aware that with proper encouragement 

 on suitable land the wild reared pheasant is enough of itself, 

 and on any land a great assistance to the game stock. 



The most noted success has occurred at Euston, where 

 about 6000 wild pheasants have been shot in a season. This 

 is the most noted, because the system adopted there advanced 

 game preserving in general by one step. 



The advance occurred in this way. When the Duke of 

 Grafton succeeded to the property, he told Blacker the keeper 

 to stop the hand rearing of pheasants. The keeper, however, 

 begged for, and obtained, a compromise. This was, that he 

 might have hens under which to place eggs removed from 

 pheasants' nests in danger, until he could find other pheasants' 

 nests in which to place them. It has resulted, in practice, 

 in keeping eggs until the shell-chipping stage under the 

 domestic hens, and then in placing them under pheasants 

 having their own eggs in the same state of incubation. This 



