Practical Game-Preserving. 30 



influence which the great number of game-farms now 

 exercise upon game-preserving in general and pheasant- 

 raising in particular. Whether the position is beneficial 

 or not to the great interests involved depends upon the 

 point of view, but without reflecting in any way upon the 

 merits or otherwise of these enterprises, it is necessary to 

 state that the systems of game-rearing set out in these 

 pages are those in which the game-farm only figures as a 

 useful resource when, through the outbreak of disease 

 or by reason of other patent cause, the possibilities of the 

 preserve itself have been rendered nugatory. 



In what I have chosen to term the higher preservation 

 the matter of pheasant-production resolves itself into two 

 heads : egg-supply and hand-rearing. Other matters 

 largely depend upon these points, and determine themselves 

 according to the system adopted. 



Two sources of egg-supply are open to the preserver of 

 pheasants upon a large scale : the one from birds penned 

 specially for the purpose of providing eggs to be hatched 

 and reared from ; the other the collection of eggs from the 

 wild birds' nests to be similarly dealt with. Or the two 

 sources may be linked together, one being made sub- 

 servient to the other. Taking it for granted that the 

 axiom that every pheasant-preserve should be self-support- 

 ing as regards the egg-supply be accepted, the means to be 

 adopted to make this provision must depend upon the extent 

 of the preserve. For a small estate such as would come 

 under the denomination a one-man shoot, the arrange- 

 ments made need partake of but a very simple character, 

 and need not be of other than semi-permanent character. 

 Coming to larger preserves, however, where many hundreds 

 of birds, approximating thousands or more, have to be 

 reared, something conceived on a larger and more 

 permanent basis is required ; whilst when the question of 



