April 29, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
655 
is almost absolutely essential to keep the birds 
in good health. Bad water as well as impure 
and stale food will soon spread disease, and 
it pays much better to look after these things 
and prevent sickness. “An ounce of prevention 
is worth a pound of cure” is very true as to 
the breeding of pheasants, and it is essential 
that scrupulous cleanliness should be observed. 
1 he pens should be provided with oyster shells, 
plaster, lime and gravel. The first the birds eat 
for the formation of egg shells, the last for 
digestion. Gravel is absolutely necessary to keep 
the birds in good health. A little white sand or 
ashes in which to bathe will he appreciated by 
your charges and will keep them clean. The 
ground in the pens should be turned over every 
few weeks and air-slacked lime mixed with it. 
1 his keeps the ground from contamination and 
in this way one can use the same pens for a 
number of years without any danger to the 
health of the birds. 
While in the employ as keeper of the Jekyl 
Island Club, at Brunswick, Ga., I used the same 
pens for five years in succession, keeping them 
pure and clean in the way just mentioned, and 
a healthier and more vigorous lot of birds one 
could not find anywhere. 
1 he eggs should be collected several times 
every day because if they are not the cock— 
and sometimes the hens—will form the egg-eat¬ 
ing habit. One can in a measure prevent this 
evil by placing china eggs in the pens, but one 
must be careful to select them so that the birds 
cannot detect the difference. They must be of 
the same size, shape and color as the genuine 
pheasant egg. The color, by the way, varies 
greatly. Some may be grayish-green, some white 
or nearly so, others of bronze shade, still others 
grayish blue, and yet others almost brown. I 
used to place the pseudo eggs in the pen nearly 
two weeks before the hens started to lay, and if 
any of them did start to peck at them, they were 
soon discouraged, and when the real eggs ap¬ 
peared they did not bother them. However, if 
you have no china eggs, you must find the cul¬ 
prit. In most instances this will be the cock, 
and if he is not taken out at once he will teach 
his mates egg-eating, which, looking at the value 
of the eggs alone, will constitute a severe loss, 
and at times be almost ruinous. The bird, cock 
or hen, may at first not intend any harm. They 
begin to push the egg about with their beaks 
for want of something better to do, as the 
small inclosure does not permit of much exer¬ 
cise. Finally they peck and break the egg, and 
once the contents are tasted and eaten, the ruin¬ 
ous habit is formed forever. 
While some breeders claim they have remedies 
to break offenders, I do not believe in them 
much. Some advise to cut the beak. Others 
fill an empty shell with soap, etc. I think, how¬ 
ever, that the main and only remedy lies in pre¬ 
vention. Do not let your birds form such habits. 
In my twenty years'^ experience I have had little 
or no trouble with egg-eating birds. 
I now come to the collection of eggs. As I 
mentioned before, eggs should be removed sev¬ 
eral times a day. They should he kept in a 
cellar if possible. Fill a box with bran and put 
the eggs point down into this. They should 
never be placed on their sides. Every night they 
should be turned over, from the pointed end to 
the blunt end, and vice versa. This should never 
be neglected, as it is very important not to dis¬ 
place the yolk, for if it is done, it will ruin the 
fertility of the egg. I have always found that 
eggs kept as described will be in good condition 
for hatching, because bran absorbs a lot of 
moisture and by keeping the eggs therein they 
also will retain the required moisture. I can 
tell at a glance whether or not an egg will hatch 
by simply looking at the shape, color and for¬ 
mation of the shell. 
Having collected from sixty to eighty eggs, the 
hatching can be commenced. The eggs are 
hatched under ordinary barnyard fowls. I have 
used almost any kind of chicken to hatch my 
pheasant eggs, and of them all I find the brown 
Leghorn and a medium sized Plymouth Rock 
hen the most careful and best of foster mothers. 
Many breeders use the white Leghorn and game 
chicken, but I have found them too wild, break¬ 
ing many eggs. The little bantam hens are very 
good, but being so small, one need hardly con¬ 
sider them in pheasantries where one expects 
to rear several thousand pheasants. 
An ordinary barnyard fowl is given fifteen 
eggs for a setting. I have always used a house 
built for the purpose of hatching. It should be 
located in a cool, shady place, providing at the 
same time for plenty of fresh air. Have all the 
air come in from above, so that there will be 
no draft on the floor of the house. The size of 
such a hatching house of course depends on the 
number of eggs one expects to hatch. Invari¬ 
ably I have built mine ten by sixteen feet and 
twelve feet high. I divided this into three compart¬ 
ments with a door leading to each of them from 
the outside. 1 he house should be floored and 
made tight generally, to keep out rats. On all 
sides in each compartment I arrange my setting 
boxes, making each box 14 inches square to 
afford the setting hen plenty of room. With 
the exception of a baseboard four inches wide, 
the front of the box is left open. This base- 
hoard is placed there simply to hinder the eggs 
from rolling out on the floor. The opening in 
front of the box is provided for by a removable 
frame made of light boards and half-inch wire 
netting. When in place they not only keep the 
hens from leaving the nests, but also keep in¬ 
truders out. The floor of each setting box is 
covered with a solid piece of turf cut to fit. The 
center of this is lightly hollowed out, filled with 
leaves or chaff, and the eggs put on this. Hens 
should always be set on the nest after dark, and 
it is best to put the eggs under the hen after 
you put her on the nest instead of putting in 
the eggs first and the hen on top of them. 
When you first commence to handle a setting 
hen, she is liable to be restless and resentful 
of any interference, and while in this mood she 
may break some eggs. Hens with feathered and 
scaly, scrofulous appearing legs should never be 
used in a pheasantry, as they will spread the 
same disease among your birds. 
Charles Brinckmann. 
[to BE CONCLUDED.] 
Book Exchange. 
No doubt there are many of our readers who possess 
old books, and others who would be glad to possess 
them, and we are, therefore, making a special place in 
our advertising columns, which may be called a book 
exchange, where those who wish to purchase, sell or ex¬ 
change second-hand books may ask for what they need, 
or offer what they have. 
Sale of a Great Gunning Marsh. 
The sale of one of the largest and best of 
the gunning marshes in North Carolina has re¬ 
cently become known. These are the Baum 
marshes, long leased by the Palmer’s Island 
Club, which have furnished and still furnish 
some of the 'greatest duck shooting in North 
America. 
Ever since the Civil War, Currituck Sound has 
been famous as a favorite winter home for 
ducks, and of the marshes bordering on that 
sound those owned by Josephus Baum were 
among the most important. Mr. Baum owned 
a great area of the beach which separates Curri¬ 
tuck Sound from the ocean. On the seaward 
side this is a hard sand eternally pounded by the 
ocean. Back of this lie the dunes above the 
beach which once bore trees of considerable size, 
which in some places were even forests, but now 
have in other places been buried deep by the 
shifting sands. On the sound side, grassy 
marshes and meadows, cut up by a thousand 
narrow leads and dotted with as many shallow 
ponds, furnish attractive resting and feeding 
grounds for the fowl. In these leads and ponds, 
and often in the shallow water close to the 
marsh, grow- in great profusion those water 
plants on which the ducks feed, and which give 
them the delicious flavor for which birds killed 
in this sound are famous. 
Many years ago Josephus Baum sold to the 
Currituck Club of North Carolina a great stretch 
of marsh lying at the northerly end of his hold¬ 
ings on this outer beach, but—himself a gunner 
and with boys who in time might become gun¬ 
ners—he reserved for himself the southerly end 
of these marshes, which he believed constituted 
the best ducking ground of his holdings. This 
tract is vaguely spoken of four miles long by 
perhaps a mile wide, and in the winter season 
it is all of it more or less thronged with birds. 
Shoving through the narrow leads and ponds 
one constantly sees ahead of him, sitting on the 
water or resting on the shores, hundreds, if not 
thousands of ducks and geese, which rise on 
wing as the skiff approaches, and take their 
flight to other resting places where they will not 
be disturbed. To many gunners who have been 
over the property it has always seemed an ideal 
marsh. So it was considered by its owner who 
a few years ago held it at $60,000—surely a great 
sum to pay for a shooting ground. 
In old times, before shooting became so popu¬ 
lar, Josephus Baum raised on this beach some 
horses and cattle, and banker ponies bearing his 
brand no doubt still wander up and down there. 
Afterward he leased the shooting to the Palmer's 
Island Club, which enjoyed it for many years 
and had great shooting, but during the last years 
of its lease was greatly troubled by poachers 
who so persistently followed night shooting as 
to drive the fowl away. So at last, seven or 
eight years ago, the Palmer’s Island Club gave up 
its lease, its various belongings were auctioned 
off and the club disappeared. Soon after that 
the property was leased to a Mr. Simpkins, of 
Boston, who had it for five years, and now for 
the last two years it has been shot over by Mr. 
Baum’s sons. 
The price paid for this great marsh has not 
been announced, but it may be assumed to have 
been somewhere near—though probably less than 
—the asking price above mentioned. 
