Practical Bird-Keeping .— Correspondence. 151



asked me to answer vour enquiries about rearing Inipeyan Pheasants. I

have found no great difficulty in rearing them to maturity, and at the

present time I have an adult pair, both of which were reared here. I have

had success both when the eggs have been left to the mother bird and when

we have taken them and placed them under a domestic hen. I use cross¬

bred “Silkies,” bred from Silky hens mated with Game Bantams, for

rearing valuable Pheasants and Waterfowl. After the first week, the hen

should be allowed to leave the coop with the young birds by day and

should have the free range over an enclosure not less than 50 yards square,

where the grass has been allowed to grow long, so as to afford cover and

shelter as well as abundance of natural food. The young birds will do

much better thus than when confined to a coop, for they are great foragers

and take a great deal of exercise. Until the chicks are half-grown they are

shut up in the coop with the hen at night.


A pair of my Impeyans have reared their own young more than once.

They have an enclosure, about thirty yards square, round a large fallen tree

(walnut), which affords a great deal of shelter from wind and rain and great

choice of roosting place. The young perch when three or four weeks old,

and it is a pretty sight to see them settling down for the night, perched

between the parents, both of which will extend the wing over the nearest

chick, for the cock Inipeyan takes his full share of night duty. As might

be expected of a bird coming from very high ground the Inipeyan must

have plenty of shade in hot weather, and this applies specially to the young

chicks.


As to food, my young Impeyans and Tragopans get hard-boiled egg,

chopped lettuce and onion, hemp-seed and moistened barley meal, and

fresh ants' eggs; and I find the best way of giving this is to place it on a

clean board. Nothing must be allowed to get in the least tainted or sour

and no stale food is left about. As the birds get older a little wheat is given

and more barley meal, Canary and other seeds, but I give scarcely any

maize. A heap of sand or fine ashes should be within the young birds

reach for dusting, and a good supply of fine sharp grit and, of course, pure

water. I think the exercise which the chicks get when allowed to run free

with a careful hen is very necessary, for I have known several cases of

failure when attempts have been made to rear Impeyans in coops like the

commoner Pheasants. Also it is very important not to expose the young

birds to a fierce sun. W. H. St. Ouintin.



NOTE TO BINDER.


The illustration of the nest of the Indian White-eye should have

appeared last month but was held over owing to an unavoidable delay.

When binding it should be inserted to face p. 115 .—[Ed.]



