90 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



The pens should be suflBciently shielded by trees, so as to 

 insure in very sunny weather a grateful shade ; nevertheless, 

 too much leafy shelter is apt to prove provocative of damp 

 and cold. They should also, while enjoying a southern 

 aspect, be well protected from the east wind. Thus placed 

 the birds are better left without any well meant but fanciful 

 attempts at further increasing their comfort. The little 

 matters above enumerated excepted, the more they are 

 exposed to the elements and permitted to rough it, the 

 healthier and more robust will they become. 



" As in our present case here, so it frequently occurs 

 that insufficient space militates against that annual shifting 

 of aviaries on to new ground, so often recommended, and 

 upon which, so far as my experience serves me, where the 

 utmost attention to scrupulous cleanliness has been observed, 

 unnecessary stress is laid. 



" After the laying season, when our birds have availed 

 themselves of the liberty accorded them, the pens are com- 

 pletely denuded of their contents. The ground is trenched 

 spade deep, thickly sown with unslacked lime, then covered 

 with from two to three inches of fresh clean dry loam, and 

 finally freely moistened with water through an ordinary 

 garden-rosed watering-pot, when any floating lime dust is 

 effectually disposed of, and the young birds may with safety 

 be introduced. 



"Our aviary, in its entirety, measures in width about 

 27ft., and length 108ft., there being, however, three transverse 

 divisions, four square compartments are thus formed. A 

 small trench, one foot in depth, is dug around the whole 

 structure. A piece of stout wire netting, one foot six inches 

 in width, placed with one edge in the bottom of the trench, 

 has its other laced with wire to the hurdles, up the outside of 

 which it extends nine inches, when the earth is filled in, and 

 rammed. The inclosure is thus rendered fox, cat, and rabbit- 

 proof ; it has further attached to it ' gorse bavins,' thus 

 securing warmth and privacy. The whole of the other 



