102 Laying and Hatching. 



There is no doubt that bad management and improper 

 feeding tend to promote this serious evil. The frequent 

 disturbance of the birds by the inquisitiveness of visitors, 

 bad and improper stimulating food, without a sufficiency of 

 green vegetable diet, want of cleanliness in the pen, and 

 insufficient or dirty supply of water, and want of grit to assist 

 digestion, all aid in developing the habit. Mr. J. P. Dougall, 

 in his " Shooting Simplified," suggests the following mode 

 of preventing the practice when once estabhshed : "In 

 pheasantries means should be taken to prevent the eggs 

 being destroyed by the male bird ; and as it is impossible to 

 keep continual watch, the hen should be induced to seek a dark 

 secluded corner by forming for her an artificial nest covered 

 thinly with straw. Under this straw have a net of mesh 

 exactly wide enough to allow the egg to drop through into a 

 box below, filled with soft seeds or shellings, leaving only a 

 few inches between ; the cock bird cannot then reach the egg, 

 which falls uninjured on the soft seeds below, and is safely 

 removed." 



Mr. Leno writes : " I have invariably found the cocks to 

 be the culprits. As soon as a pecked egg is found, the cock 

 bird should be removed, and the hens left by themselves for a 

 few days, to see whether he is or is not the guilty one ; before 

 putting in another cock with the hens, fill up the shell of the 

 broken egg with soft soap, which the fresh bird may try his 

 beak at. In case the first cock has been at mischief long 

 enough to teach the hens, there is no saving the eggs, unless 

 they are watched and the eggs picked up immediately they 

 are laid, or by partitioning part of the pen off, and straining 

 some galvanised wire netting across the enclosure six inches 

 off the ground, the mesh being of a sufficient size to allow 

 the eggs to drop through as soon as laid on to some moss or 

 chaff ; the hens should be driven into the wired enclosure 

 early in the morning, and let out again late in the evening — 

 food and water, of course, must be placed in a small trough 

 for them." 



