HATCHING. 371 



Three, four, or five tame-bred hen pheasants are put into a 

 pen with one cock, a difference of opinion existing as to the 

 best proportion for the purpose, but this \vill vary much 

 according to circumstances. Some strong healthy cocks will 

 do better with four or even five hens than with three, while 

 others again will scarcely fructify the eggs of the smallest 

 number of hens mentioned. Wild birds will lay in confine- 

 ment if they are put in a quiet place and not disturbed, but 

 they will not produce nearly so many eggs, and of what they 

 do lay a large proportion will be addled. If wild birds only 

 can be procured, the best plan is to cut one of their wings, 

 and make a large walled enclosure in the middle of a quiet 

 covert, open over head, into which the wild cocks come. 

 The hens make their nests in the usual way, and these are 

 robbed of their eggs as fast as they are laid, taking care to 

 leave a nest egg. Sometimes in this mode twenty eggs a 

 piece may be procured from wild hens, but rarely above that 

 number, while tame hens will generally lay from twenty- 

 four to thirty eggs each. The above plan is a good one, 

 even with tame-bred hens, which should have one of their 

 wings cut in any case, for, however careful the breeder may 

 be to avoid frightening them, such an event will occasionally 

 occur, and then if full-winged they fly up against the cover, 

 and crush their skulls or break their necks, if it is solid, or 

 hang themselves in a mesh if it is of network. Pinioning 

 is an unnecessary cruelty, and as it is permanent the hens 

 can never be turned out. Moreover, the cutting of the quill 

 feathers close to the wing bone is equally efficient if it is 

 done as fast as the feathers grow during the moulting time. 



HATCHING. 



A large lxt,d<nn is the best kind of hen for the purpose of 

 hatching game eggs, but she will not cover so great a 

 number of them in the nest, nor can she foster so many 

 young birds from the cold as a larger hen. A game hen, 

 or, in fact, a hen of any small breed, will do very well, and 

 being of larger size than the bantam will hatch and rear a 

 dozen or fourteen young pheasants or partridges. Very 

 large hens are objectionable from their tendency to tread on 

 the young birds, which their weight is then sure to destroy. 



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