CHAPTER IV. 



PHEASANTS: The Higher Preservation. Penned Birds for 

 gg-Supply. Management of Penned Birds, Construction 

 of Pens. Eggs from Wild Birds. 



IN the foregoing chapters has been shown how pheasants 

 may be introduced and increased upon a moderate scale 

 and under limited conditions. It is now necessary to 

 consider matters from a more extended point of view. To 

 this end it is advisable to hold a brief review of what 

 may be termed the higher preservation in other words, 

 the production and maintenance of the largest head of 

 game an estate will support. 



A preserve of the kind indicated may consist of one or 

 several estates or manors. It may be one large self- 

 contained estate, or it may be made up of many estates, 

 each characterised as a beat, or themselves divided into 

 one or more beats. Whatever the constitution of the 

 preserve, whether for the whole or for parts, the system of 

 going to work is mainly identical, and should be such that 

 it is self-contained and, if possible, entirely self-support- 

 ing. By this is meant as far as pheasants are concerned 

 that everything reared upon the preserve should be 

 produced from eggs provided by the preserve. It is 

 impossible in a work of this kind to ignore the fact that a 

 comparatively new feature in connection with game- 

 preserving has arisen of late years in the remarkable 



