26 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



In the foregoing extract the writer attributes the mortality 

 to the unsanitary conditions prevailing under the artificial 

 system of rearing, but the primary cause is the ignorance of 

 those in charge. Long experience has taught some keepers 

 a few essential rules that must be observed ; but, as a rule, 

 they proceed on no rational principle in what they do, despis- 

 ing scientific books relating to their duties, but readily adopting 

 any ridiculous rule of thumb suggestions coming from others 

 as ignorant' as themselves. The system alluded to by 

 Mr. Tegetmeir, of hatching the eggs in dry, unsanitary pigeon 

 holes, one above the other in tiers in dark sheds, is quite 

 common among gamekeepers who describe themselves as 

 " experts " in the business. This applies more to England than 

 Scotland, where, we are told, artificial rearing is practised 

 more successfully and intelligently, the keepers often taking 

 the work of rearing by contract, at so much per bird, till the 

 birds are taken off their hands on the first of August by their 

 employer. The expert whom we mentioned before, in writing 

 to us on this subject, says the results of this system are very 

 different from those he can remember, where a Sussex man, 

 " who could neither read nor write," was employed on a Scotch 

 estate to breed the pheasants — not an uncommon plan we 

 believe. 



One plea of keepers for picking so many wild-laid eggs 

 out of the coverts to put under hens is, that the wild birds lay 

 more eggs than they can hatch, and that it is better to at least 

 remove some of them, although it is seldom the pickers-up 

 discriminate very nicely. Now, as regards this point, we 

 believe that where the coverts are stocked year after year 

 with coop-reared birds, the birds become partially domesti- 

 cated, or rather demoralised in their habits, and run together 

 like barn-door fowls, several hens often laying in the same 

 nest ; hence the large number of eggs sometimes found. We 

 have often seen the hens running together in crowds at the 

 beginning of the laying season, and under such circumstances 

 over-full nests were often found ; but nothing of the kind 

 happens among really wild pheasants. We lived for years 

 close to the extensive pheasant coverts belonging to the Duke 

 of Buccleuch, in Scotland, all stocked with wild birds, the nests 

 of which we often found, and the number of eggs rarely or 

 never reached a dozen. It was, moreover, rare to find a nest in 

 which all the eggs were not hatched off. The real wild 

 pheasant, like other wild birds, does not, as a rule, lay more 

 eggs than it can cover and hatch out, and that, we believe, is 



