Nests in Trees. 17 



feet from the ground. On throwing up a stone out flew a 

 fine hen pheasant. The keeper then ascended the tree, and 

 found, to his astonishment, eight pheasant's eggs in an old 

 owl's nest. He removed the eggs, and placed them under a 

 hen, and at the expiration of three days he had eight fine 

 lively pheasant chicks." 



A third states that " at Chaddlewood, near Plympton, 

 Devon, a pheasant has built its nest (twelve feet from the 

 ground) in a fork of an ash tree close to the house, and has 

 laid eight eggs." 



It is difficult to ascertain whether or not in the instances 

 in which the young are hatched in these elevated situations, 

 they fall out of the nest and survive or are killed and carried 

 away by predatory animals, or whether they are safely 

 removed by the parent birds, and if so, by what means. 

 Even the following accounts do not throw much light upon 

 the subject. In the Zoologist for 1894 (p. 266) the late Lord 

 Lilford wrote that a pheasant had appropriated a wood- 

 pigeon's nest, in which she had laid nine eggs. Three young 

 birds were afterwards found dead at the foot of the tree 

 which contained the nest, the inference being that the 

 remainder of the brood had reached the ground in safety. A 

 correspondent of the Field stated that " A hen pheasant 

 made her nest in an oak tree, about nine feet from the ground. 

 The young were hatched, and she succeeded in taking seven 

 young ones safely to the ground, leaving five dead in the nest, 

 and one bad egg." Another stated that in the park at 

 Fillingham, Lincoln, a pheasant deposited eight eggs in the 

 nest of, a woodpigeon in a fir tree upwards of sixteen feet 

 from the ground ; she hatched out seven of them, but was 

 unfortunate, as four were killed ; they were supposed to have 

 fallen from the nest. A third reported that on the estate 

 of the Marquis of Hertford, at Sudborne Hall, Suffolk, a 

 pheasant had taken possession of a nest deserted by a sparrow- 

 hawk, in a spruce fir, twenty-five feet from the ground, and 

 hatched eight young ones, seven of which she succeeded in 



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