Correspondence



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something there I pressed still harder and the yolk and white of an egg came

away. I then laid the bird down, meaning, when I had finished in that apiary,

to bury her. As I laid her down her beak was partly open and I thought

I saw her tongue move. It seemed impossible and also having, as I thought,

broken an egg inside her, it seemed hopeless in any case. I examined her

again and was sure she was stone dead, but again as I laid her down I fancied

her tongue moved. So, hating to be in doubt, I rushed her in to the fire and

sat holding her in my hand for fifteen minutes before there was a sign of life,

and then one eyelid moved ; I then rolled her in a duster and left her on the

rack above the kitchen range. About an hour later she was most distinctly

alive, not fit to move, but breathing, so I poured three drops of brandy and

three of water into her mouth—I doubt if she swallowed any of it—and then,

still rolled up, I put her in a cage in front of an electric fire. By the afternoon

she could sit and even stagger on her feet and she ate a little millet spray.

Yesterday, 16th February, she seemed better, ate more, and actually sat on

the perch of the cage, and I began to have faint hopes. This afternoon,

17th February, she has laid a semi-soft rough egg, shell broken at one end

and quite square like an envelope at the other, pure white with one speck

of blood on it, and about an inch long, absolutely empty. She now seems quite

fit and has been flying round my sitting-room ; but I have still got her in

front of a fire. On examining the nest-box in which I knew she slept I found

seven eggs—this was apparently her eighth. I should be very interested to

know if any one has had a case in the least like it.


H. G. Chichester.



NEWS FROM AN AMERICAN MEMBER


Each issue of the Magazine is a delight and I always await its coming

with much anticipation. The January issue was especially interesting

to me because of Mr. Lambert’s article on Ornamental Pheasants, and

also the account of Mr. Stallard’s successful breeding of Cheer Pheasants,

inasmuch as the Ornamental Pheasant Society of America was organized at

New York on 8th January of this year and appears to be quite successfully

under way.


Officers of the Society are Mr. Philip M. Plant, Waterford, Conn., President;

Mr. Frank Buck, Amityville, L.I., N.Y., Vice-President; and Mr. C. L.

Sibley, Wallingford, Conn., Secretary-Treasurer. Some thirty interested

persons attended the organization meeting and applications for membership

are coming in steadily.


Ornamental Pheasants are very much on the up grade in America

at present, and because of the size of our country and the many and varied

climatic conditions nearly all the varieties so far imported are doing well and

most of them are breeding.


This season Mr. John Robinson, of Aldershot, Ont., Canada, reared success¬

fully to maturity twenty-one young Cheer Pheasants. Last year Mr. Robinson

reared some hybrids between the Cheer and the Common Koklass. Mr. Leland

Smith, of Fair Oaks, California, also reared Cheer, Koklass, Satyr, and

Temminck Tragopans, and nearly all the Firebacks. Mr. Jackson, of San

Francisco, California, reared Blue Manchurians in large numbers (as did

several others), a fine flock of Malay Crestless Firebacks (several breeders

have reared these during the last few years, but I have not yet heard of the

Bornean Crestless being reared), Tragopans of various sorts, many Impeyans,



