64 MANAGEMENT OF PHEASANTS IN CONFINEMENT. 



The author of a most graphic article on the pleasures of pheasant rearing, 

 published in the Fall Mall Gazette, in describing the gathering of the eggs, 

 truly says : " Unfortunately nothing is more easy to find than a pheasant's 

 nest. Like a cockney looking for a home in the suburbs, the hen pheasant seems 

 to prefer a lively situation near a thoroughfare, with a good view of anything that 

 may be going on. It needs no great practice to catch the glance of the bright 

 beady eye among the roots of the roadside hedgerow, or to distinguish the grey 

 mottled plumage among the grass and nettles in the ditch below. Look under that 

 heap of fallen boughs, and as likely as not there are the green- grey eggs dropped 

 under the very outermost, where there is scarcely a pretence at cover, although, had 

 she taken the trouble to force her way one half-yard fiwther, the hen might have 

 laid them safe out of sight of all but ground vermin. So by dint of poking about 

 among the grass and the branches and brambles, by looking under furze bushes 

 and in hedgerows, and in the cavities formed at the foot of tree trunks, you may 

 come upon a good number of nests in the afternoon, should birds be tolerably 

 plentiful. Very likely indeed you have found too many eggs to be accommodated 

 under the sitting hens at your disposal. Some must be left, while other brood 

 mothers are sought. Whether on your second visit you find those you left, as you 

 left them, depends greatly upon circumstances. If you have a profusion of rooks 

 about your place, the chances are much against it. For those onmivorous gluttons 

 have as decided a partiality for pheasant eggs as any ball-going gourmand for those 

 of the plover. They have overrun your woods. They sit swinging and cawing on 

 each projecting bough that commands a prospect. They walk the slopes of your 

 fields, one eye closely scanning the soil for insects, the other sweeping all the points 

 of the compass. Nothing escapes their observation. When they see you out for an 

 object they follow you and mark each movement. We have very little doubt they 

 speedily learn to suspect your intentions, and when they see you stoop in a likely 

 spot, they fly down to institute an investigation whenever your back is turned. In 

 no other way can we possibly account for the wholesale wreck of eggs that had 

 been spared and sat upon until you visited them in your walk. And if you doubt 

 who are the culprits, try the ordeal by taste, and strychnine a nestful of eggs. You 

 wUl find the bodies of the black delinquents strewed round the fragments of the 

 shells. 



" Nothing can be prettier than the broods of young pheasants as they are 

 hatched off, tame as chickens — although more graceful and active — running from the 

 shell, and beginning forthwith to peck about for a living. Unfortunately there are 

 other members of the animated creation who watch their growth and their move- 

 ments with even keener and more immediate interest than yourself. For some four 

 months to come you mean neither to shoot nor eat your confiding prot^g^s; but 

 they are surrounded by sharp-set carnivora who propose themselves that pleasure on 



