106 Laying and Hatching. 



kleptomania. But we are in the way of believing chattering- 

 to be the sign of a frank, shallow nature, and we are apt to 

 condone the thefts that are perpetrated with no view to 

 profit. In reality, the jackdaw is a deep hypocrite — a robber 

 and a bloody-beaked murderer. He chatters his way from 

 branch to branch above the coops with the most unconcerned 

 air in the world — ^just as a human thief walks, whistling, with 

 his hands in his pockets, towards the prey he means to make 

 a snatch at. Then, when he sees himself unnoticed, the 

 jackdaw stills his chatter and makes his stealthy swoop ; 

 and in this way, watching while your watcher's back is turned,, 

 he massacres a whole family of your innocents, and the hawks 

 and weasels get the credit of the crime. But, after all, a gun 

 kept upon the spot generally inspires a salutary dread. 



" Many of your young birds survive the perils of their 

 cheeperhood ; then the long grass in the neighbouring bits 

 of covert becomes alive with them, and once in that stage 

 they are comparatively safe. Thenceforward till the autumn 

 they feed and thrive, strengthen and fatten. And, sport, sale, 

 and the autumn game course out of the question, what can be 

 pleasanter or prettier in the way of sounds or sights than 

 the young birds learning to crow in your coverts as you 

 saunter out before breakfast, or scattered about your lawn as- 

 you dine, with open windoAvs, of a summer evening ? " 



The most successful mode of rearing pheasants is to adopt, 

 in those situations where the conditions are favourable, what 

 may be termed the more natural system, such as was followed 

 most successfully for many years on the estate of the late 

 Sir Walter Gilbey. 



The details of the management will show that the success 

 was due simply to the pheasants being reared under natural, 

 sound sanitary conditions. The number raised annually 

 varied between 3500 and 4000. The largest covert on the 

 estate is closely wooded on heavy, damp, unfavourable land. 

 It is eighty-two acres in extent. Then there are two others, 

 one of fifty-six acres and another of thirty-two acres, and in 



