THE SUCCESSFUL REARING OF ENGLISH PHEASANTS. 



PERCY SELOUS. 



Given a favorable locality and a good 

 start, combined with a considerable amount 

 of systematic attention, there is no reason 

 why pheasants should not eventually ob- 

 tain as good a foothold here as in England 

 and other parts of Europe. Although these 

 birds have been thoroughly acclimatized in 

 Great Britain for many centuries, they do 

 not really thrive like the indigenous game 

 birds — as the partridge, red grouse, etc.; 

 without some extraneous supervision. 



In my younger days I had much to do 

 with pheasants, and have reared many hun- 

 dreds. I was also thrown in close contact 

 with English gamekeepers, a class of men 

 that have, for generations, made the suc- 

 cessful rearing of game their study. In- 

 deed their livelihood is obtained from it. 



The pheasant being not only polyga- 

 mous but the cock birds being also amor- 

 ous to a marked degree, they fight des- 

 perately for the harem, and during these 

 conflicts destroy numerous nests and eggs, 

 especially if too many males are allowed to 

 remain. The proportion of males hatched, 

 as to females, is usually large. It has been 

 found necessary to control this preponder- 

 ance by killing many of the male birds, but 

 never a hen. There is an unwritten law 

 among game preservers on the other side 

 the water which deals most unpleasantly 

 with any person who deliberately shoots a 

 hen pheasant. 



There is small probability that a suffi- 

 cient number of cocks will not be left re- 

 maining, ordinary protection being afford- 

 ed; and one cock pheasant will serve many 

 hens. The natural enemies of the bird, 

 fourfooted and winged vermin, would 

 about be on a par, or perhaps a little worse 

 here than in England, where the keeper 

 has his " per capita " grant. These the 

 trapper controls, to an extent. It is owing 

 to. these drawbacks, especially, that a mere 

 go as you please policy has not proved 

 satisfactory in pheasant preserving, across 

 the pond; and the same rule, in all proba- 

 bility, holds good here, the greater extent 

 of country notwithstanding. In England 

 it is usual to hatch large numbers of pheas- 

 ants' eggs under domestic hens; and it 

 must not be understood that the advocates 

 of the battue stand alone there. To the 

 credit of all concerned such exhibitions are 

 markedly on the decrease. 



A few pheasant runs, containing each a 

 cock and 5 or 6 hens, are necessary. In 

 the wild state a hen seldom lays more than 

 12 eggs. In captivity she will lay 4 times 

 that number. The runs should be covered 

 with tarred twine netting, never wire, 

 overhead; and it is preferable not to cut 



the pinion feathers at all; so that after the 

 laying season is over the hens may be 

 turned down, the cocks being kept for ex- 

 change. 



Pheasants soon become accustomed to 

 those who attend to them, and behave like 

 fowls, but let a strange person appear and 

 up they go like rockets; hence the neces- 

 sity of twine netting. There should be 

 some bushes in the runs, for the hens to 

 lay under; and if you want to succeed, 

 never have the run twice — that is, 2 years in 

 succession — on the same soil. 



Never allow one of the caged hen pheas- 

 ants to sit. For the first few days after the 

 chicks are hatched, they should have 

 groats, chopped egg and finely chopped 

 onion tops. A great element of success in 

 the rearing of the chicks is the judicious 

 addition of a little maw (poppy) seed to 

 the food. The chicks are then more likely 

 to sleep, after feeding; for it must be re- 

 memoered that a pheasant is not a domes- 

 tic fowl; and, on the slightest alarm, in- 

 stead of running to its foster mother, will . 

 rush off in any direction and hide in the 

 herbage. 



Ants' eggs are greatly relished by young 

 pheasants and where these are hard to get 

 it is a good plan to hang up a few beef 

 hearts, at intervals of a few days. When 

 full of maggots cut the lower end and al- 

 low the larvae to fall into a box of bran, to 

 clean. If this is not done, the chicks are 

 apt to scour. Some animal food is neces- 

 sary, and such things fill the bill. 



Clean water is of the greatest impor- 

 tance. As the young chicks grow, the 

 portable coops, containing the hens, should 

 be placed near the woods, so that the sur- 

 roundings may become familiar. They 

 should never be fed without a whistle, kept 

 for this purpose, being first blown. By this 

 means you can always keep track of the 

 birds, until such time as they may finally 

 be left to their own devices. 



It by no means follows that because a 

 man can raise poultry he will succeed with 

 pheasants. They are very difficult to rear, 

 even with the best attention. After the 

 young birds are left to themselves it is 

 better they should be fed, for a while, each 

 day distributing the maize or wheat farther 

 into the cover. 



The pheasants roost, preferably, in trees 

 of the fir kind. This is unfortunate, for it 

 makes the bird a conspicuous mark, on a 

 moonlight night; a fact the pot hunter is 

 not slow to turn to account. To remedy 

 this evil, somewhat, keepers place dummy 

 pheasants about, in likely trees, and this 

 tends not only to a waste of ammunition, 



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