SITUATION OF PENS. 89 



when the egg harvest closes, by extracting the crippled 

 feathers, a gradual recovery of power enables the birds one 

 by one to effect escape; the exodus thus permitted being 

 generally fully accomplished in sufficient time for a thorough 

 cleaning and preparation of the aviary in readiness for its 

 proposed future young occupants. One of the great secrets 

 of success lies in variety of dry and liberality of green food, 

 together with a generous supply of frequently changed 

 water, gravel or road grit, ashes, chalk, and pounded bones. 



" I now propose offering a few suggestions touching more 

 particularly the position, construction, and general manage- 

 ment of the pheasant pens or aviaries. It may, however, 

 be premised that their size and the numbers of birds pro- 

 posed to be kept, greatly modifies many minor matters of 

 detail, with reference not only to the health, but also' to the 

 comfort of the prisoners. On the all-important question of site 

 — fair contiguity to the keeper's cottage should be observed ; 

 for if placed at too great a distance, a laxity, in winter 

 more especially, of that solicitude so essential to their welfare, 

 is likely to be engendered; while on the other hand close 

 proximity, above all should there be many children, may, with 

 all their custodian's care, prove the cause of great and 

 irrevocable mischief. Total isolation, again, in the recesses 

 of a deep, secluded covert, renders the birds so nervously 

 sensitive that they are apt, upon the slightest unexpected 

 excitement, to lose all self-control, dash about, and thus risk 

 eggs, limbs, and even life. 



" Our pens are placed within five yards of, and parallel 

 to, a leading carriage drive, a thoroughfare daily in use. 

 From earliest youth, therefore, the birds are more or less 

 inured to the ever-changing sights and sounds incidental to 

 ordinary traffic. Their tlius seeing and hearing all going on 

 around gradually enables them to acquire such an amount of 

 courage, that curiosity usurps the place of fright ; the cocks 

 crowing joyously yet defiantly, while the hens peer inquisi- 

 tively, yet fearlessly, through the lattice of their harems. 



