PHEASANTS 



the better. Overfeeding and want of exercise are the 

 frequent cause of failure, but upon the skill and judg- 

 ment of the feeder all depends, no fixed rule can apply in 

 any case. The weather, if it be damp and cold, or dry and 

 hot, necessitates change in and attention to the manage- 

 ment of the birds. But, above all, cleanliness is of the 

 utmost importance, and must be most strictly observed, 

 and nothing is more likely to prove fatal than tainted or 

 sour food. 



Hard-boiled eggs grated and mixed with a little fine 

 meal, baked custard, made by mixing new-laid eggs with 

 milk, mixed with meal, Indian corn-flour, a little pea- 

 meal and oat-meal or barley-meal, should be the food. 

 This mixture should be made sufficiently stiff to crumble. 

 When they get older, fresh finely-chopped green food, 

 ant eggs ^ or other insect food, such as grasshoppers 

 and gentles. Gentles used in a green condition, that is, 

 freshly taken from putrid flesh, are apt to scour or 

 poison the young birds, and are therefore dangerous, 

 if used too freely and without great care. On no 

 account let them be used until they have been well 

 cleansed. For this purpose they must be kept some days 

 after they are removed from the flesh upon which they 

 have been feeding, and placed in damp sand or fresh earth, 

 to sweeten and purify them, and even then used very 

 sparingly. The sooner the young birds begin to feed upon 

 seeds the better, and, in order to tempt them, cut groats, 

 a little millet and canary-seed, together with bruised hemp- 

 seed, should be sprinkled about with the other food. 



^ Fresh ant eggs are preferable, but a good substitute are the 

 dried or prepared ant eggs obtained in large quantities from the 

 continent ; these, when mixed with moist food, answer very- 

 well not only for the young pheasants, fowls, etc., but also for 

 nightingales and other warblers. 



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