NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 47 



covery by passing vermin or poachers. 

 In the same way she can never be relied 

 on to take the trouble of flying on and off 

 the nest, a wise means of saving the 

 tell-tale trail, so sure a source of trouble 

 where foxes are abroad. 



The hen pheasant — doubtless made 

 casual in her habits by the long-continued 

 influences of the rearing -field — often 

 shows a singular lack of method in her 

 nesting arrangements. Two or three 

 pheasants will often set up house together 

 and lay twenty or thirty eggs in the same 

 nest, with no thought as to what is to be 

 done with them. They have at all times 

 an unholy desire to crown the efforts of 

 the partridge with a casual egg or two of 

 their own ; a sorry jest for the partridge, 

 for although under normal conditions her 

 own eggs would come out first, somehow 

 the larger eggs seem to get most of the 

 heat, the pheasant chicks hatch and are 

 led away by the unfortunate foster-mother, 

 while her own off-spring are left to perish 

 in the shell. 



