PHEASANTS: IN PEACE 115 



selves and their belongings. The longer your 

 stock has been wild-bred, the more satisfactory 

 the results. 



The hand-rearing of pheasants is a special 

 department of a keeper's duties, but it by no 

 means follows that a successful rearer is a success- 

 ful all-round keeper. A man may be a fine loader 

 of cartridges, yet may be unable to hit a hay-stack. 

 The rearing of pheasants has its charms and its 

 worries, of great interest to the keeper, but not 

 to other people even to the employer, who is apt 

 to confine his practical interest to the cost. Hand- 

 rearing is so tainted and controlled by money that 

 there is not much room left now for woodcraft, the 

 essence of a gamekeeper's life. Hand-reared 

 pheasants are quoted at so much a head, or a 

 hundred, or a thousand, the price being a little 

 higher or a little lower in a bad or a good season. 

 This reminds one of the sale of music at so much 

 a perforated roll. 



The rearing of pheasants is the drudgery of a 

 keeper's work. From early morning till late at night 

 the keeper is tied to his rearing-field hand and foot. 

 It is the same old routine day after day, night after 

 night. But however sick of things he may grow 

 as the weeks go by, I never yet knew a keeper 

 who was not as pleased with the first new brood 

 of chicks as a mother with her latest baby, even 

 though he may have reared hundreds for years 



82 



