104 Laying and Hatching. 



It not infrequently happens that a greater number of eggs 

 are required for hatching under farmyard hens than are 

 produced by the birds in the pheasantries ; in such cases the 

 surplus eggs in the nests of the wild birds may be advantageously 

 collected. This, however, may be done in a right or a wrong 

 "way. They should be taken before the hen pheasant begins 

 to sit ; and if removed one at a time every other day as the 

 -bird is laying, they are certain not to have been partly hatched . 



Richard Jefferies, in a most graphic article on the pleasures 

 of pheasant rearing, describing the gathering of the eggs, 

 truly says : " Unfortunately nothing is more easy to find than 

 a pheasant's nest. Like a cockney looking for a home in the 

 suburbs, the hen pheasant seems to prefer a Hvely situation 

 near a thoroughfare, with a good view of anything that may 

 be going on. It needs no great practice to catch the glance 

 of the bright beady eye among the roots of the roadside 

 hedgerow, or to distinguish the grey mottled plumage among 

 the grass and nettles in the ditch below. Look under that 

 heap of fallen boughs, and as likely as not there are the green- 

 grey eggs dropped under the very outermost, where there is 

 scarcely a pretence to cover, although, had she taken the 

 trouble to force her way one half-yard further, the hen might 

 have laid them safe out of sight of all but ground vermin. 

 So by dint of poking about among the grass and the branches 

 and brambles, by looking under furze bushes and in hedgerows, 

 and in the cavities formed at the foot of tree trunks, you may 

 come upon a good number of nests in the afternoon, should 

 birds be tolerably plentiful. Very hkely indeed you have 

 found too many eggs to be accommodated under the sitting 

 hens at your disposal. Some must be left, while other brood 

 mothers are sought. Whether on your second visit you find 

 those you left, as you left them, depends greatly upon circum- 

 stances. If you have a profusion of rooks about your place, 

 the chances are much against it. For those omnivorous 

 gluttons have as decided a partiality for pheasant eggs as any 

 ball-going gourmand for those of the plover. They have 



