LAYING AND HATCHING. 63 



before putting in another cock with the hens, fill up the shell of the broken 

 egg with soft soap, which the fresh bird may try his hand ■ at. In case the first 

 cock has been at mischief long enough to teach the hen?, there is no saying the 

 eggs, unless they are watched and the eggs picked up immediately they are laid, or 

 by partitioning part of the pen off, and straining some galvanised wire netting across 

 the inclosure six inches off the ground, the mesh being of a sufficient size to allow 

 the eggs to drop through as soon as laid on to some moss or chaff ; the hens 

 should be driven into the wired inclosure early in the morniag, and let out again 

 late in the evening — food and water, of course, must be placed in a small trough 

 for them." 



Mr. Fairfax Muckley, of StoTirbridge, says : " My pheasantries are large, and 

 of considerable extent. My method is this : In the beginning of April I have a 

 bundle of larch bushes placed on each comer of the pheasantries, leaving only room 

 behind for one bird, and a little hole in the bushes for the hens to creep into ; 

 then make a place on the ground behind the bushes and put two or three sham ground 

 glass eggs, and also place a few anywhere about the pheasantries ; they then become 

 accustomed to see these sham eggs and try to break them, but finding they cannot 

 do so, they leave the real ones alone. The hens are also induced to go into the 

 comers of the pheasantries and lay to the sham eggs. The great thing is to have 

 these in every way like real ones. Those generally used are useless, being either too 

 heavy or too light, and wrong in appearance. I may add that the oftener the eggs 

 are collected the better; but care should be taken not to disturb the hens when 

 hehind the bushes. I had two very fine cock birds sent me this season; they ate 

 the eggs in the beginning, but by continually having perfectly-made sham eggs 

 before them they are quite cured, and over one hundred eggs have been collected 

 out of their pens. It is a good plan, when a hen has just laid, to take the egg 

 away and put a sham one in the place, particularly when you know they eat them. 

 At the end of the season have the sham eggs collected for other seasons." 



In consequence of the removal of the eggs as soon as deposited, and the 

 birds not sitting, the number laid by the hens in confinement is greatly in excess 

 of that produced by them in a wild state, sometimes as many as twenty-five or 

 thirty being laid by one hen. This extreme prolificacy tends to exhaust the birds, 

 and it wiU be found most advantageous to turn them out when they have laid a 

 second season, and supply their places by young poults. 



It not unfrequently happens that a greater number of eggs are required for 

 hatching under farmyard hens than are produced by the birds in the pheasantries ; 

 in such cases, the surplus eggs in the nests of the wild birds may be advantageously 

 collected. This, however, may be done in a right or a wrong way. They should 

 be taken before the hen pheasant begins to sit ; and if removed one at a time every 

 other day as the bird is laying, they are certain not to have been partly hatched. 



