70 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 29. 
during the swarming and honey-gathering season with 
much advantage, but in the autumn and spring, when 
robbing is going on, it would be ruinous. 
Feeding. —If the cold easterly winds prevail at the time 
this paper meets the eye of its readers, as they have done 
for some time past, go on to feed all stocks that have not a 
good store of honey. Barley-sugar is the least troublesome 
for the purpose. 
THE GOLDEN AND THE SILVER PHEASANTS. 
(Continued from page 10.) 
| Complaints are often made, not merely that these 
pheasants, but all kinds of fancy poultry, while suffering 
imprisonment in a small pen or aviary, devour their own eggs 
as soon as laid. Thus:—“A friend here keeps gold and 
silver pheasants, but I fear there must be some mis¬ 
management in his establishment, for lie meets with many 
losses. He feeds them mainly on wheat, and, I suspect, 
gives them too much to eat; for it can hardly he good for 
birds that have so little exercise always to have highly 
nourishing food within reach. One of his difficulties is, 
that his golden pheasants eat them own eggs. I know no 
remedy for this." 
Highly nutritive food of any one kind is not sufficient to 
keep an animal in health, or to prevent the manifestation of 
what we are pleased to call a depraved appetite, i.e., a longing 
after some unusual article of diet. Variety of food is the 
natural mode of supplying these requisite elements to the 
system. The apparently unnatural practices of incarcerated 
birds during their laying season may be, and I quite believe 
are caused by a temporary craving both for animal food, and 
also for phosphate of lime, without a continued supply of 
which the laying a large nest of eggs becomes a physical 
impossibility. The hen bird cannot create the materials 
which are to form her deposit. A little chopped boiled 
bullock’s liver, and a few worms and insects, with plenty of 
crushed egg-shells or powdered oyster-shells, may be supplied 
to still the longing and put a stop to the propensity. It, is a 
mistake to say that treating the birds with a feast of egg¬ 
shells is the way to teach them to eat eggs. On the contrary, 
it is the way to satiate and cloy them ; just as the new boy, 
fresh put into the confectioner’s shop, after he has been 
allowed to take his fill for a day or two, never afterwards 
looks upon a dish of sweets with his former greedy eye. 
“ However,” continues my informant, “ I would strongly 
recommend any one keeping pheasants in confinement, to 
place them nests in as secluded a spot as possible : thus, 
at all events, deereasing the chances of accidents to the 
eggs, and the acquisition of this bad habit.”— J. S. W. 
Such precautions are quite right to be taken, provided the 
medical principle, if I may so call it, is not thrust out of 
mind. For whatever eatable or drinkable is necessary for a 
creature’s due performance of its functions, that may fairly 
be said to be its medicine. Therefore, let oyster-shells, 
calcined to a friable state in a kitchen fire, always be within 
reach of confined gallinaceous birds. Even in a crude con¬ 
dition they are given with evident benefit to poultry which 
have the advantage of ranging at liberty. A Cheshire 
clergyman (W. D. F.) has informed me that, “ broken by a 
stone into small pieces they are invaluable, in this county, 
for all kinds of poultry, and I keep a largish stock. Mine 
consume about a score daily.” 
Now it should be remembered that the degree of craving 
which gallinaceous birds feel for various matters, and 
especially for phosphate of lime to swallow, may depend, in 
some measure, upon the geological character of the district 
which they inhabit, varying as there is more or less lime to 
be found upon the surface. The English counties most 
famous tor poultry are those upon the chalk , Norfolk, Cam¬ 
bridgeshire, Kent, ice-. The bustard, before its extinction in 
England, was most frequent, if not entirely confined to 
similar tracts. I am not aware whether observations have 
been made how far the geographical range of species is 
conterminous with special geological formations. The night¬ 
ingale in Great Britain seems banished from the granite; 
the Cornish daw, on the other hand, is at present exclusively 
attached to those ancient rocks. It is known, however, 
that the indigenous geographic range of all the large 
gallinaceous genera is much limited. That of many plants 
is very strikingly bounded by the extent of the peculiar 
rock on which it best pleases them to grow. Thus, the 
Cornish heath, E. vagans, affects the serpentine: beyond it 
you will not find the plant in England; but light upon the 
serpentine in Italy, and again you find the Cornish heath. 
Capt. Sturt says, that whilst prosecuting his researches in 
the interior of the colony of New South Wales, he could not 
hut be struck with the apparent connection between its 
geology and its vegetation. So strong, indeed, was this 
connection, that he had little difficulty, after a short ex¬ 
perience, in judging of the rock that formed the basis of 
the country over which ho was travelling, from the kind of 
tree or heritage that flourished in the soil above it. Now, 
it may be, that birds in their inmost hearts are as home sick, 
pine as incurably for their native soil and their native 
climate, as plants. Therefore, as we are not tender-hearted 
enough to send them home, we must bring a sort of artificial 
fatherland to them. Our present subjects are natives of 
Middle Asia, Northern China, and Japan. H. 
CENOTHERA SPECIOSA. 
Your correspondent, D. Beaton, in The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener for Feburary 5th, writing on CEnotheras, mentions 
the CEnothera speciosa as a very desirable plant for bedding, 
or for mixed flower-borders. I grow it in the latter capacity, 
and have done so for years, considering it as one of the 
showiest flowers that I have ; it blooms all the summer. The 
plan I adopt is, when dressing the beds in autumn, to 
collect the strongest of the young rootlets or offsets, and 
plant them six or eight in a circle, with one or two in the 
middle, so as to form a clump or knot. The following season 
they blossom profusely. Now that these clumps are be¬ 
ginning to throw up suckers, I can supply him with two or 
three, if he should not have already met with any. But 1 
want to rail his attention to another Ginothera, more rare 
and showy, and of which he has not spoken. It is of exactly 
the same habit as CE. speciosa, hut instead of being white, is 
of a delicate bright lemon colour, and the flowers of the size 
of small tea-cups. It was given to me about ten years ago, 
by a lady from Chelmsford, but I have lost it, and have 
never seen the plant since. Could any of your readers 
inform mo where it might be procured ? 
I cannot conclude this notice without expressing a hope 
that your Mr. Weaver will continue his description of ora 1 
hardy herbaceous flowers. I have profited much by what he 
has written, and am anxiously waiting for another of his 
valuable articles.—S. P., Rushmere. 
PLENTIFUL FEEDING OF POULTRY. 
Poultry is, indeed, gaining a standing and a name in the 
country, and those who have given attention to its improve¬ 
ment have reason to feel proud that their useful fancy is 
likely to result in an end so beneficial. Poultry exhibitions 
promise soon to become as frequeut as cattle shows; and 
fowls are taking the place among the stock of the country 
which I think they merit; for what other animal is there 
which produces so much food, in proportion to its size, as a 
hen does during the whole course of her useful little life. 
The decision of the Royal Agricultural Society to admit 
poultry to their show, will, doubtless, be responded to with 
pleasure by exhibitors of all ranks, while numerous local 
societies and exhibitions are about to be formed and sup¬ 
ported with spirit. 
In these days of improvement, it must not lie forgotten by 
persons who keep fowls, either for pleasure, use, or profit, 
that such as are poorly fed, and badly housed, can never be 
either fine or productive. Abundant and varied feeding is 
found necessary to produce these results. Poor and irregular 
feeding can no more raise a fine, productive fowl, than it can 
a cow or a sow with the like good qualities. When cocks 
and liens have full liberty, they will pick up a great deal of 
food for themselves; but all who wish to arrive at excellence 
in breeding, will do well to bear in mind, that they must 
not, on any account, depend on this chance-kind of feeding, 
or allow it to take the placo of the regular supplies. 
