P. J. Lambert—A Few Tit-bits on Pheasants



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to ensure the birds having sufficient exercise encircle this mountain

with a banked cinder track. Messrs, damage would fix us up with

a clockwork imitation of a mealworm and this would be fixed to travel

round our track at express speed with Tragopans in the wake of our

mealworm. We should then hear such expressions as “ Come on,

Satyr ! ” “ Temminck leads ! ” “ Cabot is in front ! ” “ No ! Blyth

has won by a beak.” The lordly Impeyan cock would be our judge.

But, to be serious, I do not honestly think that the trouble lays in

lack of exercise. Tragopans are naturally lazy birds. Give them

plenty of fruit and tender green food and you will be rewarded with

fertile eggs.


I cannot say I have noticed Swinhoe’s addicted to crooked toes.

I have had here some dozen pairs and I never remember one with this

fault. But if they have this failing surely it is a result of inbreeding,

for although Messrs. Rogers and Chapman frequently import such

breeds as Tragopans, Impeyans, etc., I have never been offered imported

Swinhoes ; the obvious conclusion is that most of our Swinhoes are

probably related. My trouble with Swinhoes is that the male so

frequently kills his mate and no device seems to prevent this tendency.


I have found this spring to have been a bad one for fertile eggs in

fancy Pheasants, but it has been a splendid season for rearing. I think

the principal cause of the infertile season is that we had such a very

cold early spring, and is it not conceivable that the hen’s ovaries

become so to speak “ chilled ” ? I have not had a single egg from

four Reeve hens, and I hear from three friends including Mr. Beever

that their experience has been similar to mine with Reeves. On the

other hand I have reared (touch wood !) sixty-seven Blackneck chicks

from a pen of one cock and four hens, surely a satisfactory result.

I have recently hatched a Specifer Peafowl chick from an egg sent

from the Zoo. This little chick is really most amusing : nothing it

likes better than riding on its foster-mother’s back. Whenever the

hen calls, it jumps down, swallows the tit-bit, then hops back again

to its perch. The hen resisted this at first but now seems to have

become reconciled. Speaking of the Specifer Peafowl, surely this is

the most beautiful of all birds ; it is of course a Pheasant, so perhaps

we had better head my list as above with this most gorgeous bird.



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