How to Use Maggots. 85 



the same extent." Should the aviary be situated on soil in 

 which small stones are absent, these must be supplied ; this 

 is conveniently done by throwing in some fresh gravel once or 

 twice a week ; but it has been found that small granite grit 

 is an excellent material, and some of the most successful 

 rearers are in the habit of having truckloads of this forwarded 

 by rail from the granite quarries, solely for the use of their 

 pheasants. 



There is one point on which almost all treatises on the 

 management of pheasants are lamentablj'^ deficient, namely, 

 in enforcing the absolute necessity for a constant supply 

 of fresh green vegetable food. The tender grasses in small 

 pens are soon eaten, and the birds, pining for fresh vegetable 

 diet, become irritable, feverish, and take to plucking each 

 other's feathers. To prevent this, cabbages, turnip leaves — 

 still better, waste lettuces from the garden, when going to seed 

 — should be supplied as fast as they are eaten ; the smaller 

 the pen the greater the necessity for this supply. The late 

 Dr. Jerdon, the distinguished author of " The Birds of India," 

 when visiting the pheasantries in the Zoological Gardens, 

 said, in his emphatic manner, " You are not giving these 

 birds enough vegetable food. Lettuce ! Lettuce ! ! Let- 

 tuce ! ! ! " From my long experience in breeding gaUinaceous 

 birds of different species, I can fully endorse his recommenda- 

 tions. 



In advising plenty of vegetable food for young pheasants, 

 Dr. Hammond Smith recommends, as the most valuable of all. 

 onions, " especially the green tops of the young onions thrown 

 away when gardeners are thinning the beds, chopped up bulbs 

 and all, and mixed with the soft food for the young birds. 

 The smell of garlic is said to be a preventive of gapes, 

 and so also is the onion, which botanically belongs to the same 

 family." 



Should these cultivated vegetables be not readily obtained, 

 a good supply of fresh cut turves, with abundance of young 

 grass and plenty of clover, should be furnished daily. 



