LAYING. 11 
been hens that had assumed the male plumage, such an occurrence is even more 
unlikely than that a cock should sit, for these hens are always perfectly barren, and 
must have assumed the male plumage at the previous autumnal moult; in this con- 
dition they have never been known to manifest the slightest desire to incubate. 
Cocks have also been known to protect the young birds, as in the following instance, 
which occurred in Aberdeenshire. ‘I have for the last fortnight almost daily 
watched a cock pheasant leading about a brood of young ones, whose mother has 
evidently come to grief. A more attentive and careful nurse could not be than this 
cock. He boldly follows his young charge on the lawns and to other places where he 
never ventured before, finds them food, and stands sentry over them with untiring 
perseverance. They are thriving so well under his care and growing so fast, that 
they will soon be able to shift for themselves.” 
The same singular occurrence has also taken place in an aviary. Lord 
Willoughby de Broke some time since published the following letter: “I have 
an aviary in which there is a cock pheasant and four or five hens of the Chinese 
breed ; at the beginning of the laying season the cock scraped a hole in the sand, 
in which the hens laid four eggs; he then collected a quantity of loose sticks, 
formed a perfect nest, and began to sit; he sat most patiently, seldom leaving the 
nest till the eggs were chipped, when the keeper, afraid of his killing them, took 
them from him, and placed them under a hen pheasant who was sitting on bad 
eggs; they were hatched the next day, and the young birds are now doing well.” 
Pheasants usually commence to lay in this country in April or May, the 
date varying somewhat with the season and the latitude; but in consequence of 
the artificial state in which they are kept in preserves, and the superabundance 
of food with which they are supplied, the production of eggs, as in domesticated 
fowls, often takes place at most irregular periods. Many instances are recorded of 
perfect eggs being found in the oviducts of pheasants shot during the months of 
December and January. For example, Sir D. W. Legard, writing from Ganton, 
Yorkshire, on the 27th of December, 1864, said: “At the conclusion of a day’s 
covert shooting last Tuesday, a hen pheasant, which had been killed, was discovered 
by a keeper to have a lump of some hard substance in her; he opened her in 
my presence, when, to my astonishment, he extracted an egg perfectly formed, 
shelled, and apparently ready to be laid; it was of the usual size, but the colour, 
instead of being olive, was a greyish-white.”’ . 
A nest containing an egg has been noticed as early as the 12th of March, 
and many cases are recorded of strong nests of young during the first few days of 
May. Lord Warwick’s keeper, J. Edwards, in May, 1868, wrote as follows: 
“Yesterday (the 6th inst.), whilst searching for pheasant eggs in Grayfield Wood, I 
came upon a nest of thirteen pheasant eggs, twelve just hatched and run, and one 
left cheeping in the shell. The bird must have begun to lay in the middle of 
c 2 
