18 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIABIES. 



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. Bd-vyards, in May, 1868, wrote as 

 follows: "Yesterday (the 6th inst.), whilst searching for 

 pheasant eggs in Grayfield 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 March, as they sit twenty-five days, and they 

 do not very often lay (only every other day, at least at the 

 commencement] ." Other cases earlier by three or four days 

 than this instance have .been recorded. The Rev. Gr. C. 

 Green, of Modbury, Devon, writes : " On Sunday, April 18, 

 1875, as my curate was returning from taking the duty in a 

 neighbouring church, a hen pheasant started from the road- 

 side hedge close to the town, and fluttered before him. While 

 watching her movements he saw eleven young pheasants, 

 apparently newly hatched, fluttering in the. hedge, and at the 

 edge of a pond close by. They soon scrambled into some 

 cover, and the mother bird flew off to rejoin them from 

 another quarter. I understand, from inquiry, that this is not 

 a solitary instance of such an early brood of pheasants in 

 South Devon." 



On the other hand, examples of nests deferred until vei'y 

 late in the year are not unknown. Mr. W. W. Blest, of 

 Biddenden, near StapleWrst, writes : " Whilst partridge 

 shooting on the 3rd of September, 1874, we disturbed a 

 "itting pheasant, the nest containing twelve eggs. We often 

 hear of the early nestipig of game birds, but rarely so late in 

 the season." In October, 1869, Mr. Walter R. Tyrell, of 

 Plashwood, near Stowmarket, forwarded to me a young 

 pheasant, with the following letter: "When pheasant 

 shooting with some friends yesterday, the 15th inst., in this 

 neighbourhood, one of the beaters picked up dead, in a path 



