56 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



upwards and injure themselves and it is wonderful 

 with what perseverance a pheasant will fly up again 

 and again, until its pate has no skin left, and 

 A Game- sometimes until it can fly up no more. So the 

 Problem keeper sometimes covers the enclosure with 

 string netting, small enough to prevent the 

 birds escaping, and large enough to prevent them 

 catching their heads and hanging themselves. Others 

 follow the hawker's system, called brailing, attaching 

 Y-shaped pieces of leather to one wing so that it cannot 

 be opened for flight or the wing may be tied with a 

 piece of tape. The wings are treated in this way in 

 turn, lest one should grow stiff through having no 

 work. 



Pheasants bred simply for stocking purposes are 

 pinioned when small birds, as are wild duck ; but this 

 reduces their value when their egg-laying days are 

 numbered. Some keepers cut the flight feathers of 

 one wing, but the birds cannot then fly again until the 

 shortened quills have moulted and new ones have 

 grown. But a bird whose flight feathers have been 

 pulled out in the spring will grow fresh ones by June, 

 when she is turned out of the pen. At this time 

 the bird with cut wings is at a heavy disadvantage, 

 alike in escaping the dangers and in mothering any 

 brood she may succeed in hatching out in the woods. 



How shall a pheasant gather her chicks beneath 

 her wings if she have only a wing and a half ? 



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