74 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



but highly intensified. We are all acquainted with this smell 

 as increased by heat during roasting ; and practical poultry 

 keepers must have remarked that the excrement discharged 

 by a hen on leaving the nest has an odour totally unlike 

 that discharged at any other titnCj involuntarily recalling 

 the smell of a roasted fowl^ highly and disagreeably intensified. 

 I believe the explanation of the whole matter to be as follows : 

 the suppression of the natural scent is essential to the safety 

 of the bird during incubation ; that at such time vicarious 

 secretion of the odoriferous particles takes place into the 

 intestinal canal, so that the bird becomes scentless, and in 

 this manner her safety and tliat of her eggs is secured. This 

 explanation would probably apply equally to partridges and 

 other birds nesting on the ground. 



The absence of scent in the sitting pheasant is most 

 probably the explanation of the fact that foxes and pheasants 

 are capable of being reared in the same preserves ; at the 

 same time the keepers are usually desirous of making 

 assurance doubly sure, by scaring the foxes from the 

 neighbourhood of the nests by some strong and offensive 

 substance. A very practical gamekeeper writes as follows : — 

 " If any keeper will find his nests and sprinkle a little gas 

 tar anywhere about them, he will find the foxes will not take 

 the birds. I should, as a keeper, find every nest possible, and 

 dress the bushes, stumps of trees, &c., near the place of such 

 nest, and then keep away entirely till I thought the bird had 

 hatched, as constantly haunting a bird's nest is the most 

 fooHsh thing that can be. When "such nests are once found 

 and dressed, let the keeper look out and trap all kinds of 

 vermin, such as the cat, stoat, fitchet, weasel, hedgehog, or 

 rat, or magpie, jay, hawk, crow, rook, or jackdaw. These are 

 all enemies to the birds, as well as the fox. I am satisfied, 

 as a gamekeeper, that with good vermin trapping, dressing 

 near the nests, and good bushing and pegging of land, anyone 

 will have plenty of game, and may still keep plenty of foxes." 



Another equally efficacious plan, the value of which has 



