CHAPTEE VII. 



Laying and Hatching. 



OP the laying in aviaries there is but httle to be said. 

 The birds usually drop their eggs about at random, 

 consequently they should be looked after and collected 

 frequently, so as to prevent as far as possible their being 

 broken, which is almost certain to establish the destructive 

 habit of egg-eating. Sometimes, however, hen pheasants will 

 take to concealed nests, 'end instances are not unknown of 

 their sitting and hatching successfully in confinement. A 

 correspondent states : " In 1852 1 had a cock and three hens in a 

 small place (I will not dignify it by the name of an aviary, for 

 it is open at the top, and the birds are pinioned or have their 

 wings cut) ; one of the hens made a nest, and sat and hatched 

 five .young ones. These, unfortunately, the other pheasanta 

 killed directly they came from under the mother. In 1853 the 

 same hen sat again on eleven eggs, and hatched seven, wlien I 

 let her out into my small garden, and a better mother I never 

 saw ; she would allow no strangers to come near her without 

 flying at them. At the end of seven weeks the gapes killed 

 them all. It was a curious sight to see the old pheasant make 

 her nest of i^y leaves and hay, the former of which she always, 

 used to cover her eggs with when she left her nest, doing so by 

 standing on the edge, and throwing the leaves over her 

 back. The same hen sat again in 1854." 



Mr. G. P. Woodrow (Keeper to the Earl of Denbigh, 

 Newnham Paddox, Lutterworth), writing on the subject, 

 stated : " I have half an acre of young plantation inclosed 

 for a pheasantry and open at the top, so that the wild cock 

 birds can go in and out. I bad over thirty hen pheasants and 



