METHODS OF OBTAINING EGGS. 309 



chief danger being of their contracting the diseases which 

 attack the poultry-yard, and especially that known as " the 

 gapes." It is found by experience that whether the wild 

 pheasant is allowed to sit on all her eggs or not, in most 

 seasons she will only rear about seven or eight young 

 birds ; and so if the keeper can take half her average num- 

 ber of eggs from her, and put them under a hen, all that he 

 brings up may be considered as clear gain. When woods are 

 to be heavily stocked this hand rearing is all important, for 

 without it a large head of game is found tp be beyond the 

 powers of the most careful and experienced keeper. The hen 

 cannot cover more than half her brood when they grow into 

 anything like size, and at that time they contract colds, &c., 

 and die off with the result which I have alluded to above. 

 Nor can the wild hen pheasant find food for more than a cer- 

 tain number, while the keeper has it in his power to obtain 

 unlimited supplies for his tame birds. Hence it has come to 

 pass that for high preserving the artificial rearing of pheasants 

 is universally adopted. 



METHODS OF OBTAINING EGGS. 



The great drawback to the artificial rearing of game is the 

 temptation which is offered to keepers to procure the eggs 

 necessary for the purpose by improper means. They are 

 constantly offered to him by loose characters, who obtain 

 them by robbing the nests ; and too often it happens that 

 the keeper buys them regardless of the mode in which they 

 are obtained. The competition in getting a good head of 

 game is so strong that neither keeper nor, very frequently, 

 his master, cares much how the tiling is done, so that it is 

 done; and as eggs must be procured somehow, the robber of 

 the nest t^ets rewarded instead of being punished. The 

 penalty of five shillings per egg is very easily enforced, but 

 we rarely hear of the law being carried out, for the simple 

 reason that very few keepers can come into court with clean 

 hands. Yet nothing can be more suicidal than this, for 

 every one is robbed in his turn ; and many a preserver pays 

 for his own eggs, which would remain in their nests if there 

 were no premium for the robbery offered by himself and his 



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