FOREST AND STREAM 
899 
Pheasant House and Yards on W. B. Osgood Field Estate, Lenox, Mass. 
Experiments with English Pheasants in Massachusetts 
Assistance Given by Private Individuals Has Done Much to Keep the Covers Well Stocked, Especially in 
Berkshire County Where the Best Hunting is to be Found 
By William H. Spear. 
T HE work of the State Fish and Game Com¬ 
mission in the stocking of the covers of 
Berkshire County with pheasants, has taken 
a new phase in the putting out of birds in various 
parts of the county to applicants, to be raised 
from infancy to the adult stage, by citizens inter¬ 
ested in the effort of pheasant propagation. The 
effort has been attended with quite marked suc¬ 
cess. Several owners of large estates have be¬ 
come interested and have erected pheasantries 
upon their estates where they are breeding the 
birds for the state, as well as to gratify their 
own love for the work. 
Undoubtedly the most prominent of these is 
W. B. Osgood Field of Lenox, known as the 
Pheasant King. He owns one of the handsomest 
and most delightfully located estates in that col¬ 
ony of multi-millionaires and is a gentleman 
sportsman, a true lover of nature, and one of 
the descendants of the noted Field family, known 
world-wide for their prominence in literary and 
scientific work. On his Lenox estate, known as 
“Highlawn,” Mr. Field has erected a number of 
pheasant houses that have attracted wide atten¬ 
tion among all who are interested in pheasant 
propagation. He has not gone in for any ornate 
style of architecture in the construction of these 
houses, preferring rather to erect each of them 
on plain, substantial lines, taking into considera¬ 
tion the needs of the birds, rather than develop¬ 
ing such houses along more artistic lines. The 
accompanying views were taken for the writer by 
Mr. Field in person, at the writer’s request. 
When told that the writer desired to write up 
the pheasantry, Mr. Field kindly granted the 
permit. He is a great lover of the camera and 
does some excellent work for his own amuse¬ 
ment and gratification. 
The old gentleman with the gun is Game¬ 
keeper Foulsham. He has for a number of years 
been the gamekeeper on the Field estate, and 
has had large experience in the raising of poul¬ 
try and game birds. The rugged looking man 
in the hat is “Billy” Sargood, the widely known 
game warden of Southern and Central Berk¬ 
shire. In dignified parlance he is William W. 
Sargood, of Lee. To his legion of friends, 
throughout the district, he is known as “Bill” 
Sargood, and delights to be thus known, for 
frills and starch cut no figure with “Bill.” In 
the course of his official duties he now and then 
visits the Field pheasantry, and it was while 
upon one of these visits that the accompanying 
picture was made. 
The site selected for the Field pheasant houses, 
as shown in the picture, is on the edge of a 
heavily wooded section of the estate, where 
everything is as wild and as near to nature as 
it could well be secured. There is ample yard 
room for the birds. The uprights and cross sec¬ 
tions of these yards are of heavy iron pipe, to 
which a suitable wire mesh is fastened, and for 
three feet from the ground a substantial wind¬ 
shield protects the birds in time of need. 
The barren stumps of large trees have been 
placed in the yards, to afford shelter and skulk¬ 
ing places for the birds, when they want to get 
out of sight, and a place to sun themselves at 
other times. Here the pheasants live contented, 
as far as it is possible for any game bird to 
rest content in captivity. All are more or less 
restless. It is the natural disposition of the bird. 
In the care of pheasants thus raised, precau¬ 
tions have to be taken in the matter of feeding. 
Pheasants are light feeders and there is more 
danger from overfeeding than from underfeed¬ 
ing. Where such birds are overfed, disease is 
more apt to assail the flock. They will eat most 
all kinds of feed. They are a very wild and 
wary bird, but with gentle care will often eat 
from the hand of the attendant. Great care has 
to be exercised in caring for the birds. Not 
only are they given a wide variety of food, in¬ 
cluding green stuff, but in the latter case, the 
food has to be chopped fine to prevent crop 
binding. All food scraps are picked up that 
chance to be left after a feeding as a preven¬ 
tive of disease. Care must be taken that plenty 
of water is furnished each pen of pheasants, and 
this must not be exposed to direct sun rays nor 
must it be dirty. 
While the mating season of the pheasants be¬ 
gins in February and continues into July, rarely 
do the breeders of pheasants trust a setting of 
eggs to the female pheasant. She is wild and 
flighty, and the male bird is apt to eat the eggs. 
When a setting of pheasant eggs are ready they 
are set under a domestic hen, usually of the 
bantam breed. The bantams seem to be a na¬ 
tural mother to the young pheasants and when a 
brood of pheasants are hatched out the bantam 
mother cares for them as though they were her 
own. In fact she knows no difference. Rarely 
have satisfactory results been obtained where 
hen pheasants have been left to hatch their owr. 
eggs in captivity. Although broody they are 
so wild that the slightest noise is apt to send 
them from the nest, and the eggs get cold and 
fail to hatch. 
Care has to be taken in selecting the adopted 
mother for each contemplated brood of young 
pheasants. She has to be free from lice and all 
diseases. Scaly leg especially has to be guarded 
against, and often the hen’s legs are dipped in 
a weak solution of carbolic acid before she is 
placed on the eggs. Then she is dusted with 
insect powder as a precaution against lice, for 
