REARING THE YOUNG BIRDS. hi 
If the young birds are put out into the covert, the hen and coop (as in the garden) 
should be brought with them, and laid in a ride close to some very thick covert; 
they should be fed there about four times a day, beginning early in the morning, 
and diminishing as the birds grow strong. I feed them at this period on crushed 
wheat and barley, boiled potatoes chopped fine, some boiled rice and curds, all 
mixed together.’ 
A very vexed question with regard to rearing of the young birds is the 
supply of water. Some very practical keepers give no water whatever; others give 
a very little; whilst a third set keep up an abundant supply, I am strongly of 
opinion that in this, as in all other respects, we cannot possibly do better than take 
nature for our guide. When hatched out naturally, there is no doubt that the 
birds obtain a plentiful supply of water. Even when there is no rain, the cloudless 
skies are productive of heavy dews, and the young birds may be seen drinking the 
glistening drops off the grass in the early morning. Some persons maintain that 
the ova of the gapeworm are taken in with the water gathered from dewdrops on 
the grass; others suggest that they occur in rain-water, but there is no foundation 
for either of these theories. The gapeworms doubtless, like all other entozoa, 
pass the first stage of their existence in some lower forms of animal life. Although 
the precise animal in this case has not yet been discovered, yet it is probably 
a small worm, mollusk, or grub inhabiting the ground, as the disease is strictly 
local, which would not be the case if it were disseminated by a flying insect, by 
dew or rain water, or by any animals inhabiting running water. Much evil is 
produced by allowing the young pheasants to drink water contaminated with their 
own excrement, which is always the case if the water vessels are so constructed 
that the young can run into them; where such water is used, there can be no 
doubt of its injurious quality, but I cannot imagine that fresh, clear water can be 
otherwise than beneficial to the birds. 
A correspondent, who is a most successful breeder of pheasants on a large 
scale, and whose young stock are in splendid order, writes:—“*I may give as my 
opinion that it is perfectly necessary to their health to have fresh spring water. 
Indeed, my man last year used to go to one particular spring to supply his birds, 
as it was better water. In their wild state, immediately they are out of the nest, 
the hen conducts them to the water, and in our wild Devonshire hills, where a 
streamlet runs in every valley, you can always see the well-defined paths of the 
broods to and from the water. I have just asked my man, and he tells me that so 
well are their water-loving propensities known, that poachers in large breeding 
places always net in dry weather, any springs within reach of the coops, and often 
with success.” Another authority says:—<I am strongly opposed to attempting 
to rear pheasants without water, as against all nature; but my keeper adheres to 
his own opinion that for at least some weeks they should have it only once a day, 
