Y. Malisoux—Questions Answered



13



Unfortunately she never completed the performance and died as a

result of an internal injury.


This was bitterly disappointing to myself as an amateur, as these

birds seem so rare nowadays, and although I have tried all known

methods of obtaining a hen, up to date I have been unsuccessful.


Whilst the above small incidents take very little space to write

and look very uninteresting when written, they have provided us with

a very full six months of interest, pleasure at success, disappointment

at failure, and hard work.



QUESTIONS ANSWERED


By Y. Malisoux


I have been asked if it is really so difficult to rear young Pheasants

as my article on disinfection of eggs seems to imply ? I never said

so, and no general reply is possible. But first I would point out

that mistaken conclusions have been arrived at.


I never advised scraping the shells of Pheasant eggs in order to

facilitate hatching. All I said was that cleansing the shell where it

has become soiled by contact with the hen might be useful against

umbilical infection when hatching. This cause of mortality is negligible

with common kinds, but the true fancier prides himself on not losing

even one chick of a rare species.


Scraping the shell gives no appreciable aid to hatching. I am not

a biologist like my friend M. Derscheid, so I dare not speak positively,

but this is what long experience leads me to believe. The actual

hatching of a chick is more intimately connected with its movements

in the egg than with its actual pecking at the shell. The chick

which hatches out easily begins by pecking lightly at one spot. Then

it stops. Presently it turns ; and begins to work at another place

and gradually makes a line of attempts. A chick, on the contrary,

which starts by making a large hole and continues to enlarge it often

ends by not hatching. It does not lack strength , for it has made a

larger hole than is necessary. Of course, thinning the shell would



