48 MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN PRESERVES. ~ 
attacks of four-footed or ground vermin, and the escape of any of the sitting birds 
and their eggs from foxes, polecats, hedgehogs, &c., appears at first sight almost 
impossible. This escape is attributed by many, possibly by the majority, of sports- 
men to the alleged fact that in the birds when sitting the scent which is given out 
by the animal at other times is suppressed; in proof of this statement is adduced 
the fact that dogs, even those with the keenest powers of smell, will pass within a 
few feet, or even a less distance, of a sitting pheasant without evincing the slightest 
cognizance of her proximity provided she is concealed from sight. By others this 
circumstance is denied, they reason @ priori that it is impossible for an animal to 
suppress the secretions and exhalations natural to it—secretion not being a voluntary 
act. I believe, however, that the peculiar specific odour of the bird is suppressed 
during incubation, not, however, as a voluntary act, but in a manner which is capable 
of being accounted for physiologically. The suppression of the scent during incu- 
bation is necessary to the safety of the birds, and essential to the continuance of 
the species. I believe this suppression is due to what may be termed vicarious 
secretion. In other words, the odoriferous particles which are usually exhaled by 
the skin are, during such time as the bird is sitting, excreted into the intestinal 
canal, most probably into the cecum or the cloaca. The proof of this is accessible to 
every one; the excreta of a common fowl or pheasant, when the bird is not sitting, 
have, when first discharged, no odour akin to the smell of the bird itself. On the 
other hand, the excreta of a sitting hen have a most remarkable odour of the fowl, 
but highly intensified. We are all acquainted with this smell as increased by 
heat during roasting; and practical poultry keepers must have remarked that 
the excreta discharged by a hen on leaving the nest have an odour totally 
unlike those discharged at any other time, involuntarily recalling the smell of a 
roasted fowl, highly and disagreeably intensified. I believe the explanation of the 
whole matter to be as follows: the suppression of the natural scent is essential to 
the safety of the bird during incubation; that at such time vicarious secretion of 
the odoriferous particles takes place into the intestinal canal, so that the bird 
becomes scentless, and in this manner her safety and that of her eggs is secured. 
This explanation would probably apply equally to partridges and other birds 
nesting on the ground. 
The absence of scent in the sitting pheasant is most probably the explanation 
of the fact that foxes and pheasants are capable of being reared in the same preserves ; 
at the same time the keepers are usually desirous of making assurance doubly sure, 
by scaring the foxes from the neighbourhood of the nests by some strong and 
offensive substance. A very practical gamekeeper writes as follows:—“If any 
keeper will find his nests and sprinkle a little gas tar anywhere about them, he will 
find the foxes will not take the birds. I should, as a keeper, find every nest 
possible, and dress the bushes, stumps of trees, &c., near the place of such. nest, 
