SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



When dealing with the young birds, since you 

 take them from the natural mother, and can give 

 them only a foster mother conirned to a small run or 

 coop, you must be careful to place thern under the 

 conditions which the former would find for them in 

 the wild state — ground warm and dry to their feet, 

 shelter to protect them from winged and other 

 vermin, and from cutting spring blasts or drenching 

 showers, on some gentle slope, warmed and dried 

 after the storms by air and sunshine, while you never 

 relax your watchful care to prevent the spread of 

 disease likely to occur from the close contact of large 

 numbers, and to repel the attacks of the many pre- 

 datory creatures which assail them. 



In order to keep them, and realise from them in 

 the proper quantities, let the woods in which you 

 turn them out be such as by experience you know will 

 suit their habits. There should be good access to arable 

 ground and crops, or artificial patches cultivated for 

 their benefit ; covert nicely alternated between free 

 spaces of dry ground under branching trees for them 

 to run and scratch in, and warm thickets to squat 

 or shelter under from the approach of danger or the 

 onslaught of wintry blasts ; here and there clusters of 

 dark protecting evergreen trees for them to roost 

 securely in at night. 



