Insect Food. 193 



thirty-six plucks a week producing enough food for about 200 

 young pheasants. Three times a week from six to twelve 

 ])lucks were spread in the morning on a hurdle covered with 

 lin. mesh wire cloth, and set out of doors, and by night were 

 fully blown, when they were taken into the house and hung 

 on the hooks. Seven plucks will produce from four to seven 

 quarts of maggots. The hopper boxes were about half-filled 

 with a mixture of wheat bran and ground beef scraps (one 

 quart of scraps to six of bran), thoroughly mixed and moistened 

 with water. In about twenty-four hours (depending somewhat 

 upon the temperature) the maggots drop into the bran, where 

 they find additional food and then drop into the drawers below. 

 They are not in condition to use until the fourth or fifth day 

 after the meat is blown, but if not then placed in a cool place 

 will change to the chrysalid state, unfit for the chicks, in a 

 few hours. By placing them in a refrigerator as soon as fully 

 grown, where the temperature does not exceed 45°, further 

 development is arrested, and they may be kept for' several 

 weeks. 



" All this may not seem very enticing work, but it is a 

 necessity, as this or some equivalent must be used for food to 

 insure success in raising Mongolian pheasants. The chicks 

 are so small and tender for the first two or three weeks that all 

 efforts to raise them on the food recommended for the English 

 pheasants end more or less in disappointment. When fed on 

 maggots the loss from disease was slight, but a considerable 

 number were lost by accidents. When the young pheasants 

 were but three or four weeks old they fliew over the fence 

 and into the adjacent woods. The treatment of the young 

 MongoUan was quite different from the directions given for 

 raising English pheasants. After the first week the board was 

 taken away from the little yard, and the birds were allowed 

 to go at pleasure into the large inclosure, shutting them 

 up at night and letting them out in the morning, often by 

 five o'clock, making no effort to keep them out of the wet 

 »rass or rain. They sometimes became quite wet, but did 



