116 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
and years. See with what care he chooses a spot 
for their cradling in a coop lime-washed within to 
virgin whiteness; how tenderly he handles each 
fluffy morsel! Then how careful he is to see 
that each chick is safely brooded beneath the hen 
before he fastens the shutter and leaves the coop! 
Again and again he will return and kneel down 
to peep within, lest a chick may have wandered 
from the life-giving warmth. With what care he 
will mince the hard-boiled egg for their first feed ! 
and how proudly he draws your attention to their 
sturdiness by saying, ‘And don’t they nip about!’ 
There are long hours with plenty of hard work 
attached to pheasant-rearing, and there is a good 
deal of luck. I never had better luck than I did with 
the first batch of pheasants I ever reared entirely by 
myself. I put out a hundred and seventy chicks 
in ten coops, in two rows, and never had a moment’s 
worry with them. I was able to take to covert a 
hundred and sixty-four birds. I never did better. 
The second batch, soon after they were hatched, 
came in for some days of icy cold wind, which, 
besides nearly blowing them bodily away when 
they ventured outside the coops, withered them 
up. Then, when the weather had improved, and 
the survivors were going on nicely, blindness made 
its appearance. Only a few birds died from it, 
but of the afflicted which recovered, several never 
did any good first failing to get their head- 
