72 MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN CONFINEMENT. 
cleverer than man, but, unfortunately, the latter has not always the sense to 
perceive the fact. The nearer we can imitate her in our arrangements, the more 
successful we shall be. 
With regard to the first food of the young chicks, there is nothing superior 
to a supply of fresh ants’ eggs (as they are generally termed, although, strictly 
speaking, they are the pupz, and not the eggs of the insects). For grain, I am 
anxious to recommend, as the first food, a good proportion of canary seed in 
preference to grits and meal. Grain when once crushed or bruised has its vitality 
destroyed, and it then undergoes changes when exposed to the air: the difference 
between sweet, new oatmeal and the pungent, biting, rancid meal that is generally 
found in the fusty drawers of the corn-chandler, is known to all persons accustomed 
to use oatmeal as food. This change, however, does not occur in the entire grain 
as long as its validity exists, and hence the whole canary seed, which is readily 
devoured by the young poults, is almost certain to be fresh and sweet. Moreover, 
the husk contains a larger proportion of phosphate of lime, or bone-making material, 
than the centre of the grain, and is, therefore, better adapted to supply the wants 
of the growing birds. , 
To afford a supply of artificially-prepared animal food, most of the books 
recommend hard boiled eggs, grated or chopped small, to be mixed with bread 
crumbs, meal, vegetables, &c. Nothing, however, can be less attractive to the 
young birds than the food they are frequently condemned to exist upon. I have 
often seen pieces of the chopped white of hard boiled egg, dried by the sun into 
horny angular particles, refused by the young birds, although on these, with bread 
crumbs also dried to brittle fragments in the sun, many persons attempt to rear 
young pheasants—and fail. The best substitute for ants’ eggs is custard, made by 
beating an egg with a tablespoonful of milk, and “setting” the whole by a gentle 
heat, either in the oven or by the side of the fire. The clear eggs that have been 
sat on for a week answer perfectly well. No animal food can surpass this mixture. 
The egg supplies albumen, oil, phosphorus, sulphur, &c.; whilst the milk affords . 
caseine, sugar of milk, and the requisite phosphate of lime and other mineral 
ingredients; moreover, these are all prepared and mixed in Nature’s laboratory for 
the express purpose of supporting the life and growth of young animals, and 
combined as custard form a most soft, sapid, attractive food, that is eagerly 
devoured by the poults. Erom my own long experience in rearing many species 
of gallinaceous birds, I am confident that a very much larger proportion can be 
reared if custard forms a considerable proportion of their food for the first few 
weeks, than on any other dietary whatever. 
Many rearers of pheasants are strongly in favour of using curd, made from 
fresh, sweet milk put on the fire, and when warm turned or curdled with alum, 
and then put into a coarse cloth, which is to be twisted or pressed until the 
