116 PHEASANTS ADAPTED FOR THE AVIARY. 
with them particularly well. It was mixed into the form of soft dough with a 
little water, which was all that was required. They were also constantly supplied 
with green food, such as lettuce, when they were in the aviary. But the best way 
is to. have a coop, railed in front, into which they are put with the hen twenty-four 
hours after they are hatched. This coop should be placed upon a gravel walk as 
near to the windows of the house as possible, so that they may always be within 
observation; a small verdure garden is the best possible locality, as the young have 
plenty of range, with shelter under the bushes from both sun and rain. In the 
instance which I have already alluded to, the hen was allowed to range about six 
feet from the coop, by means of a small cord attached to a leather strap round one 
of her legs, and the other end tied to the coop; the young pheasants never 
wandered far from the hen, and always came into the coop to remain with her at 
night. In front of each coop a small frame was put down, boxed round on three 
sides, without a bottom, and railed at top; the open side was put close to the coop, 
and the young birds could run through the rails of the coop into the inclosed space, 
and were safe from the night attacks of cats, rats, &c. This frame was always kept 
before the coops for the first few days after the young were hatched, and until 
they became acquainted with the call of the hen. When I first began to rear 
young pheasants, I could not at all account for their seemingly foolish manner for 
the first two or three days after being hatched; they would run gaping about 
without appearing to notice the hen or her calls to them to come for food. The 
reason of this I afterwards believed to have been owing to their ignorance of the 
language of their foster-mother, which it took some time for them to understand ; 
during this process it is necessary to keep them confined within the frame before 
their coops, as, were they to wander a few yards from the hen, they would not heed 
her call, and would inevitably perish. When three or four weeks old, it is necessary, 
if they are to be kept in the aviary, to pinion them, which is done by cutting off 
rather more than the first joint of the wing, having previously, by means of a 
needle and thread inserted close to the small wing-bone, and brought round the . 
large one, just within the skin, taking up the main blood-vessels; the piece of the 
wing is then chopped off on a block. There is no loss of blood, and I never could 
observe that the birds seemed to suffer in the slightest degree afterwards, although 
the operation I daresay was painful enough. My reason for taking off rather more 
than the first joint of the wing was because I found that if only the first joint was 
taken off, the birds were always able, when grown up, to get out of the aviary, 
which was about 12ft. high; and I found it thus requisite to take off so much as 
to render them incapable of any attempt at flying, but I left enough remaining to. 
enable them to reach their roosting-place at night. I furnished them with a kind 
of ladder by nailing cross pieces of wood on a long piece about 3in. wide, and 
which they very soon learned to walk up and down with facility. One aviary in 
