120 Rearing the Young Birds. 



requirements, however obvious they may be. The rearing field 

 should be sunny, sheltered, and dry. Old pasture which has been 

 cropped by sheep is the best, for it will contain the natural 

 insect food so necessary to the health of the young birds. 

 The grass should be short, and the coops placed in rows, 

 fifteen to twenty yards apart — the more room the better — 

 and the coops should be shifted a yard or so every day. The 

 coops may be placed in 2>osition a few days before they will 

 be needed, so as to protect the soil beneath them from damp. 

 Place them, if possible, facing away from the wind ; and when 

 the hens with their broods are first taken to the rearing-field 

 each coop should be provided with a wooden wire-covered 

 run, as described below, so that the chicks may become used 

 to their foster-mother and recognise her call. Later a few 

 green bouglis may be substituted for the run, which will serve 

 for shelter and for shade from the sun. 



With regard to the coops employed for the hens with 

 young pheasants, a form much recommended is one made 

 like a box, 3ft. long, 2ft. wide, and 2ft. high in front, sloping 

 off to 1ft. high at the back, and having a movable boarded 

 floor that may be employed if the ground be wet. The birds 

 ought to have a farther space of about two yards square to 

 run in, fenced in by sparrow-proof wire netting. ,V good 

 coop of this kind is shown in the cut. The inclosed run, 

 which is proof against rats, sparrows, S:c., affords a sufiicient 

 space for the exercise of the young birds a day or two after 

 hatching, after which the coops should be placed without 

 the wire runs in the spot where the young birds are to be reared, 

 the grass, if high, having been mown around some short time 

 previously, so that the young shoots and tender clover may 

 be growing for the use of the birds. The advantages of 

 these arrangements have been very ably set forth by Mr. T. C. 

 Cade, of Spondon, DerbJ^ He writes : " There is a great 

 saving of food, as small birds are excluded by the wire 

 netting ; and it is also practicable to put down a good 

 supply of food at night, so that the young pheasants 



