For such young pheasants as you make choice of for your breeding stock at home, and likewise to turn out in the spring following, provide a new piece of ground, large and roomy, for two pens, where no pheasants, &c. have been kept, and there put your young birds in as they begin to shift their tails. Such of them as you intend to turn out at a future time, or in another place, put into one pen netted over, and leave their wings as they are; and those you wish to keep for breeding put into the other pen, cutting one wing of each bird. The gold and silver pheasants you must pen earlier, or they will be off. Cut the wing often; and, when first penned, feed all your young birds with barley-meal, dough, corn, and plenty of green turnips.
A Receipt to make Alum Curd.—Take new milk, as much as your young birds require, and boil it with a lump of alum, so as not to make the curd hard and tough, but custard like.
N.B.—A little of this curd twice a day, and ants’ eggs after every time they have had a sufficient quantity of the other food. If they do not eat heartily, give them some ants’ eggs to create an appetite, but by no means in such abundance as to be considered their food.
The distemper alluded to above, is not improbably of the same nature as the roup in chickens; contagious, and dependent on the state of the weather; and, for prevention, requiring similar precaution.
General Directions.—Not more than four hens to be allowed in the pens to one cock; and in the out covers, three hens to one cock may be sufficient, with the view of allowing for accidents, such as the loss of a cock or hen. Never put more eggs under a hen than she can well and closely cover, the eggs fresh and carefully preserved. Short broods to be joined and shifted to one hen. Common hen pheasants in close pens, and with plenty of cover, will sometimes make their nests and hatch their own eggs, but they seldom succeed in rearing their brood, being so naturally shy; whence, should this method be desired, they must be left entirely to themselves, as they feel alarm even in being looked at. Eggs for setting are generally ready in April. Period of incubation the same in the pheasant as in the common hen. Pheasants, like the pea-owl, will clear grounds of insects and reptiles, but will spoil all wall-trees within their reach, by pecking off every bud and leaf.
Feeding.—Strict cleanliness to be observed, the meat not to be tainted with dung, and the water to be pure and often renewed. Ants’ eggs being scarce, hog-lice, earwigs, or any insects, may be given; or artificial ants’ eggs substituted, composed of flour beaten up with an egg and shell together, the pellets rubbed between the fingers to the proper size. After the first three weeks, in a scarcity of ants’ eggs, Castang gives a few gentles, procured from a good liver tied up, the gentles, when ready, dropping into a pan or box of bran; to be given sparingly, and not considered as common food.
Food for grown pheasants, barley or wheat; generally the same as for other poultry. In a cold spring, hemp-seed, or other warming seeds, are comfortable, and will forward the breeding stock.
A New Species of Pheasant.—Amongst the numerous interesting natural productions recently brought from China by Mr. Reeves, it was with pleasure we observed a magnificent new species of pheasant, which will be a most interesting addition to the aviaries of Europe; and as it comes from the same part of the world as the gold and silver kind, there is scarcely a doubt but that, with a little care, it may be induced to breed in this country. It is about three times the size of the common pheasant, and has a tail from five to six feet long; it is of a pale bay colour, ornamented with black moons, and the head, wing, and under part of the body, black varied with white; the tail feathers are black and brown banded. Mr. Reeves brought with him from Canton two living specimens; but one of them unfortunately died in the Channel; the other is now in the gardens of the Zoological Society, where it will most probably recover its fine tail. A beautiful specimen, in nearly perfect plumage, brought by Mr. Reeves for General Hardwicke, has been presented by that gentleman to the collection of the British Museum. The tail feathers of this bird have been long known, two having been exhibited in the Museum for many years; but the bird which bore them was first described in General Hardwick’s Illustrations of Indian Zoology, from a drawing sent by Mr. Reeves, where it is called Reeves’s pheasant (Phasianus Reevesii).—Daniel—Hawker—Moubray.
Phraseology, s. Style, diction; a phrase-book; technical terms.