Sham Eggs. 103 



Mr. Fairfax Mucklejr, of Audnam, Stourbridge, says : 

 " My pheasantries are large, and of considerable extent. My 

 method is this : In the beginning of April I have a bundle of 

 larch bushes placed on each corner of the pheasantries, leaving 

 only room behind for one bird, and a little hole in the bushes 

 for the hens to creep into ; then make a place on the ground 

 behind the bushes and put two or three sham ground glass 

 eggs, and also place a few anywhere about the pheasantries ; 

 they then become accustomed to see these sham eggs and try 

 to break them, but finding thej^ cannot do so, they leave the 

 real ones alone. The hens are also induced to go into the 

 corners of the pheasantries and lay to the sham eggs. The 

 great thing is to have these in every way hke real ones. Those 

 generally used are useless, being either too heavy or too light, 

 and wrong in appearance. I may add that the oftener the 

 eggs are collected the better : but care should be taken not to 

 disturb the hens when behind the bushes. I had two very 

 fine cock birds sent me ; they ate the eggs in the beginning, 

 but by continually having perfectly-made sham eggs before 

 them they are quite cured, and over one hundred eggs have 

 been collected out of their pens. It is a good plan, when a 

 hen has just laid, to take the egg away and put a sham one in 

 the place, particularly when you know they eat them. At 

 the end of the season have the sham eggs collected for other 

 seasons." 



The glass eggs manufactured by Mr. Muckley are most 

 efficacious in preventing this destructive habit. 



In consequence of the temoval of the eggs as soon as 

 deposited, and the birds not sitting, the number laid 

 by the hens in confinement is greatly in excess of that 

 produced by them in a wild state, sometimes as many 

 as twenty-five or thirty being laid by one hen. This 

 extreme prolificacy tends to exhaust the birds, and it will 

 be found most advantageous to turn them out when they 

 have finished laying, and to supply their places by young 

 poults. 



