PHEASANT RAISING IN THE UNITED STATES. 
25 
finely chopped meat, cooked cereals, table scraps, boiled potatoes, 
boiled rice, apples, turnips, rose hips, the tubers of Jerusalem arti¬ 
chokes, and finely chopped green food, as lettuce, grass, cabbage, 
onion tops, garlic, and chickweed. Green food is important and 
should be constantly supplied, even if it must be raised under glass. 
All green food must be chopped fine, as otherwise the birds are likely 
to become crop bound. Ground bone is excellent. Seeds of various 
weeds, when obtainable, may be furnished; hay seed also is good. 
Chestnuts, especially 
wormy ones, add to 
the variety. Grit 
should be supplied, as 
with chickens, and 
charcoal and cracked 
ovster shells are of 
%} 
great service. The 
food should not be 
thrown on the ground, 
but should be put into 
flat tin or enameled 
dishes, which after 
each feeding should 
be removed with every 
scrap of scattered 
food. The dishes 
should be scalded 
but must not be al¬ 
lowed to become dirty or stale, or to remain in the sun. Sun-heated 
water often causes fatal diarrhea. A trough of running water in the 
pen (fig. 13) is excellent. 
daily. Water should 
be furnished freely, 
Fig. 13. —Side of breeding pen on a New Jersey preserve. Boarded 
at sides. The trough conveys running water from a cool mountain 
stream. 
MATING. 
« 
The mating season usually begins in February and extends to June 
or July according to locality. As pheasants mate more readily if 
thoroughly accustomed to their surroundings, it is well to obtain stock 
in the fall. The birds should be placed in the breeding pens at least 
a month before the mating season. Most pheasants are polygamous, a 
and each pen should usually contain one cock to from three to five 
hens, though the number of hens with one versicolor cock may range 
a Evidence indicates that in its natural wild state the English pheasant is monoga¬ 
mous. In game coverts, however, even when allowed to breed wild ; it has acquired 
the habit of polygamy, owing, it is supposed, to the overproportion of hens resulting 
from the great destruction of cocks. 
390 
