PHEASANTS: IN PEACE 113 
be induced to pair, and manage their affairs like 
partridges. 
The hen pheasant, while somewhat lacking in the 
common-sense of the partridge, does not deserve 
her proverbial reputation for being a bad mother. 
The chief charge against her is that she delights to 
kill off her chicks by dragging them through all the 
wet grass she can find ; it is rather the chicks them- 
selves that run into danger by foraging ahead of 
their mother, who, as a rule, does not lead, but 
follows, her brood. She scarcely can be expected 
to do more than is in her power. And what is in 
her power she does. I believe that the cause of the 
liability of pheasants’ eggs, sat upon by their owners, 
not to hatch together is slight chilling. This means 
that, though the eggs may have been sat upon the 
full time, they have not been sat upon the full time 
at the full temperature. The frequency with which 
several pheasant eggs remain in the nest unhatched 
after the brood has run—in such striking contrast 
to the occasional waste egg or two in the nests 
of partridges—is not because the eggs contained 
unfertilized germs, or were fatally chilled during 
hatching, but were spoiled before being sat upon at 
all. This is proved, I think, by the fact that, of 
eggs laid in genial weather, and waiting to be sat 
upon in genial weather, comparatively few are found 
to be addled, whatever the proportion left unhatched 
in the nest. 
