PHEASANTS: IN PEACE II5 
selves and their belongings. The longer your 
stock has been wild-bred, the more satisfactory 
the results. 
The hand-rearing of pheasants is a_ special 
department of a keeper’s duties, but it by no 
means follows that a successful rearer is a success- 
ful all-round keeper. A man may be a fine loader 
of cartridges, yet may be unable to hit a hay-stack. 
The rearing of pheasants has its charms and its 
worries, of great interest to the keeper, but not 
to other people—even to the employer, who is apt 
to confine his practical interest to the cost. Hand- 
rearing is so tainted and controlled by money that 
there is not much room left now for woodcraft, the 
essence of a gamekeeper’s life. | Hand-reared 
pheasants are quoted at so much a head, or a 
hundred, or a thousand, the price being a little 
higher or a little lower in a bad or a good season. 
This reminds one of the sale of music at so much 
a perforated roll. 
The rearing of pheasants is the drudgery of a 
keeper’s work. From early morning till late at night 
the keeper is tied to his rearing-field hand and foot. 
It is the same old routine day after day, night after 
night. But however sick of things he may grow 
as the weeks go by, I never yet knew a keeper 
who was not as pleased with the first new brood 
of chicks as a mother with her latest baby, even 
though he may have reared hundreds for years 
8—2 
