APPENDIX. 343 



him, is a labour of love. He lias great, and just pride in liis success. 

 He maintains that pheasants can be reared cheaper than barn-door 

 fowls, wherever there are woods, as the chicks find their own food at 

 such an early age. The rearing of the birds that I saw and about fifty 

 partridge-chicks, occupied the whole of his time and that of an assistant. 

 There was also a boy to cook, &c. The chicks were fed every two hours 

 throughout the day with a mixture of hard boiled eggs,* curds, 

 bread-crumbs, rape and canary seed. The shutter of each hutch 



doing duty as a tray for the food. After the chicks had fed M.-, n 



made his rounds, and scraped into a pot all that was not consumed, 

 being careful that nothing was left to get sour. He gave a small 

 portion of these remains to the imprisoned matrons. He feeds the 

 chicks liberally, yet calculates to a great nicety what will be eaten, for 

 on every shutter a portion, but a very small portion of food was left. 

 Water, kept in earthenware pans made with concentric circles on the 

 ridge and furrow system, was placed at intervals between the hutches. 

 Many times a day he moved the several coops a few feet to fresh 

 ground. At night when all the chicks have joined the hens he fastens 

 the shutters, and does not remove them in the morning until the dew 

 is off the grass. How entirely is this practice opposed to the advice 

 of the Yorkshireman given at the commencement of this note ! and 

 yet it might be possible to reconcile the contradictory recommenda- 

 tions by supposing that as soon as the young birds have nearly reached 

 maturity they are allowed to search for insects at the earliest dawn. 



M n's last location for the hutches would be in the centre of the 



landlord's property, and they would not be taken away until the hens 

 were quite abandoned by 'the young pheasants which in general 

 would be at the end of August. Differing much from Mr. Knox, it 



was M n's practice to keep as many as five hens with one cock 



for the purpose of obtaining eggs. I observed that some hutches 

 possessed a disproportionate number of inmates. This had arisen 

 from the hutches having been placed in too close proximity before the 

 chicks had the sense to know their respective foster-mothers. 



Remarking once after a good battue in cover upon the fine condition 

 of the birds spread in a long array on the lawn for the inspection of the 

 ladies, I was told that the keeper greatly attributed their size and 

 weight to keeping ridge and furrow pans near their feeding places 

 constantly filled with bark-water. He used to boil from a quarter to 

 half a pound of oak-bark in two gallons of water until it was reduced 

 to half the quantity. After once tasting it the pheasants become 

 fond of it, their natural instinct telling them the advantages of the 

 tonic. A cross with the true China makes the young birds hardy and 

 wild. The brilliancy of the plumage is much increased but not the 

 size of the birds. However long Chinese pheasants may be kept in 

 confinement they will be alarmed at the sight of strangers. 



* French eggs, which he pur- from an importing house at 

 chased cheap in large quantities Folkestone. 



