LAYING. 11 



been hens that had assumed the male plumage, such an occurrence is even more 

 unlikely than that a cock should sit, for these hens are always perfectly barren, and 

 must have assumed the male plumage at the previous autumnal moult ; in this con- 

 dition- they have never been known to manifest the slightest desire to incubate. 

 Cocks have also been known to protect the young birds, as in the following instance, 

 which occurred in Aberdeenshire. "I have for the last fortnight almost daily 

 watched a cock pheasant leading about a brood of young ones, whose mother has 

 evidently come to grief. A more attentive and careful nurse could not be than this 

 cock. He bpldly follows his young charge on the lawns and to other places where he 

 never ventured before, finds them food, and stands sentry over them with untiring 

 perseverance. They are thriving so well under his care and growing so fast, that 

 they will soon be able to shift for themselves." 



The same singular occurrence has also taken place in an aviary. Lord 

 Willoughby de Broke some time since published the following letter : " I have 

 an aviary in which there is a cock pheasant and four or five hens of the Chinese 

 breed ; at the beginning of the laying season the cock scraped a hole in the sand, 

 in which the hens laid four eggs; he then collected a quantity of loose sticks, 

 formed a perfe&t nest, and began to sit; he sat most patiently, seldom leaving the 

 nest till the eggs were chipped, when the keeper, afraid of his killing them, took 

 them from him, and placed them under a hen pheasant who was sitting on bad 

 eggs; they were hatched the next day, and the young birds are now doing well." 



Pheasants usually commence to lay in this country in April or May, the Ij 

 date varying somewhat with the season and the latitude; but in consequence of I' 

 the artificial state in which they are kept in preserves, and the superabundance 

 of food with which they are supplied, the production of eggs, as in domesticated 

 fowls, often takes place at most irregular periods. Many instances are recorded of 

 perfect eggs being found in the oviducts of pheasants shot during the months of 

 December and January. For example, Sir D. W. Legard, writing from Ganton, 

 Yorkshire, on the 27th of December, 1864, said: "At the conclusion of a day's 

 covert shooting last Tuesday, a hen pheasant, which had been killed, was discovered 

 by a keeper to have a lump of some hard substance in her; he opened her in 

 my, presence, when, to my astonishment, he extracted an egg perfectly formed, 

 shelled, and apparently ready to be laid; it was of the usual size, but the colour, 

 instead of being olive, was a greyish- white." 



A nest containing an egg has been noticed as early as the 12th of March, 

 and many cases are recorded of strong nests of young during the first few days of 

 May. Lord Warwick's keeper, J. Edwards, in May, 1868, wrote as f oUows : 

 " Yesterday (the 6th inst.), whilst searching for pheasant eggs in Grayfleld Wood, I 

 came upon a nest of thirteen pheasant eggs, twelve just hatched and run, and one 

 left cheeping in the shell. The bird must have begun to lay in the middle of 



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