LAYING AND HATCHING. 63 
before putting in another cock with the hens, fill up the shell of the broken 
egg with soft soap, which the fresh bird may try his hand at. In case the first 
cock has been at mischief long enough to teach the hens, there is no saving the 
eggs, unless they are watched and the eggs picked up immediately they are laid, or 
by partitioning part of the pen off, and straining some galvanised wire netting across 
the inclosure six inches off the ground, the mesh being of a sufficient size to allow 
the eggs to drop through as soon as laid on to some moss or chaff; the hens 
should be driven into the wired inclosure early in the morning, and let out again 
late in the evening—food and water, of course, must be placed in a small trough 
for them.” 
Mr. Fairfax Muckley, of Stourbridge, says: ‘My pheasantries are large, and 
of considerable extent. My method is this: In the beginning of April I have a 
bundle of larch bushes placed on each corner of the pheasantries, leaving only room 
behind for one bird, and a little hole in the bushes for the hens to creep into ; 
then make a place on the ground behind the bushes and put two or three sham ground 
glass eggs, and also place a few anywhere about the pheasantries; they then become 
accustomed to see these sham eggs and try to break them, but finding they cannot 
do so, they leave the real ones alone. The hens are also induced to go into the 
corners of the pheasantries and lay to the sham eggs. The great thing is to have 
these in every way like real ones. Those generally used are useless, being either too 
heavy or too light, and wrong in appearance. I may add that the oftener the eggs 
are collected the better; but care should be taken not to disturb the hens when 
behind the bushes. I had two very fine’ cock birds sent me this season; they ate 
the eggs in the beginning, but by continually having perfectly-made sham eggs 
before them they are quite cured, and over one hundred eggs have been collected 
out of their pens. It is a good plan, when a hen has just laid, to take the egg 
away and put a sham one in the place, particularly when you know they eat them. 
At the end of the season have the sham eggs collected for other seasons.”’ 
In consequence of the removal of the eggs as soon as deposited, and the 
birds not sitting, the number laid by the hens in confinement is greatly in excess 
of that produced by them in a wild state, sometimes as many as twenty-five or 
thirty being laid by one hen. This extreme prolificacy tends to exhaust the birds, 
and it will be found most advantageous to turn them out when they have laid a 
second season, and supply their places by young poults. ; 
It not unfrequently happens that a greater number of eggs are required for 
hatching under farmyard hens than are produced by the birds in the pheasantries ; 
in such cases, the surplus eggs in the nests of the wild birds may be advantageously 
collected. This, however, may be done in a right or a wrong way. They should 
be taken before the hen pheasant begins to sit; and if removed one at a time every 
other day as the bird is laying, they are certain not to have been partly hatched. 
