Morning journal and courier., 1892-08-06

The phessants begin laying by Auril
and they lay very much like the oriinar,
hen. Each can be counted on to furni.i
from twenty to thirty eggs. These ar,
daily carefully gathered not only from th,
nests In the syiaries, but from those of th,
unimprisoned birds. The latter is not ,
difficult task for the keepers; for It Is
singular fact that notwithstanding tn,
pheasants' wild nature they nest most free
ly In shrub clumps along the edges OF
walks and drives. The keepers tell N,
they love the sound and sense of compan
ionship, though themselves wonderfully
secretive and sly.
And here the element of posching is ri
diculously observable. From April &c
June phesssnts' eggs are worth from foul
to FIVE pounds per hundred, or from TWEEN.
| ty 20 twenty-five cents each. A regular
scramble for them is begun, and this sea
son provides one of the richest of the
| poscher's hsrvests. 1t is a well known
fact thst one half of the pheAsants' eggs
| exposed for sale at the shopkeepers are
stolen. Expert poschers know every
haunt of the phessants upon the demesnes
as well as the keepers They are often
ahead of the latter at the nests of the un
impxisoned birds-Nnt- this, but
keepers themselves do not scruple TO sur.
reptitiously dispose of r1ilords' supply, or
help themselves from the nests on neigh
boring demesnes.
Last spring rode to Stourbridge with
Sir Ohey-. Our mission was to secure
fifty dozen pheasants' egss, which we &C.
complished.
Probably one-hslf of them" he said,
''came from my grounds. The other half
are doubtless from several adjoining prop
critics. But" he added dryly, 1.-THE posch-
ing keeps the breed well crossed"
But the pheasant hen is not q good
mother. Foster mothers must be provid-
ed. Domestic "setting hens" are there;
fore bought up from the peasantry round
about in scores at from eighteen pence to
two shillings each. The hatchery, always
excellently walled ond protected from YER
min often still more extensively than the
aviaries where the nesting is going on
consists of long series of arched com
partments, with sliding doors which de-
scend and close the hen in tightly, leaving
several apertures for light and air. The
hen is removed from the nest daily, fed
and watered, often given q run in the wet
grass, or her breast feathers otherwise
dampened, to insure greater heat to the
eggs, and carefully put back on her own
nest, great care being taken that il is not
Roiled or fouled, the eggs misplaced, and
that all vermin be eradicated. At the end
of three weeks the pheasant chicks have
Matched. The hen is now placed in q con-
ical, hand made rush or willow coop, with
free ingress and egress for the brood,
which is closed in at night and let out at
four o'clock every morning. They are fed
hard boiled chopped eggs, mixed with oat
and corn meal, a sort of food the chief ma
terial of which is boiled and dried horse
flesh and ground biscuit and oyster-shells
Several men are now required for their
care; and for three months the entire col
lection of coops is changed daily like q
camp to new ground, and each day a trifie
nearer the coverts or forest. The food is
gradually changed TO oats and cracked raw
corn; the moment the young birds show
signs of skulking they are removed from
the domestic hen mothers and coops to the
aviaries, and in July they are set at liberty
within the grounds and forest of the de-
mesne.
However great may be the care in the
breeding of pheasants, not over one half
of the chicks come safely to maturity.
Then the preserves are ready for depletion
by poachiDg in its various forms Not
only do the birds suffer in diminution
from the professional poacher, but milords'
pheasauts prove an irresistible temptation
to every tenant and cotter living round
about the demesnes well as To many
protectors; while on many estates much of
the poaching attributed to genuine posch-
ers is done by the employees themselves.
On great estates from twenty TO fifty
men are regularly employed. There are
the agent" and his clerks The bEilif.
who looks after the home farm and cattle.
has his helpers. There are the head for
ester and perhaps a dozen under foresters.
all of whose bird and wood craft are quite
equal to those of the gamekeeper and his
several undsrkeepers. There are a master
sawyer, and three or four men engaged in
cutting timber aud posts from forest trees
and repairing gates, walls and fences
The head gardener has several assistants.
There are paintera, GLACIERS, carpenters,
etc, all of whom are familiar with the cas-
tie and the surrounding grounds. And on
some demesnes you will find nalf dozen
lodge keepers and their families. All of
these poorly paid folk love a pheasant af-
ter it has come from the oven, pot or grill
as well as do the sristocracy, and they all
know how to get them without botheIipg
the village marketman.
Professional poaching is a far less dan
gerous pursuit than il is usually consid-
cred. During the shooting season all sorts
of village hangers on are pressed into ser
vice as "beaters" and to carry and fill the
game bags. 1t is an easy thing during the
excitement to hide generous portion of
ths game at convenient points, from which
it is taken under cover of night. Clsmor
and fright also break up the rucks or CO.
veys into detached files of phessants,
which retreat as high as possible among
the branches of lsrch and FIR, when tae
poachers can easily take them from their
roosts at night by hand. Other methods
are smudging or smoking them into half
iusensibility and knocking them from their
perches with clubs; corn kernels into
which short bristles are inserted are greed
lily deyoured and the birds run choking to
the hedges to be easily taken by hand;
while an ingenious and successful device
is to fit gamecock with artificial spurs,
and stealthily place him alongside a CO
vert, when the pugnacious pheasant cock
instantly responds to the me-cock's
Growing challenge, when three or four
brace of the valuable birds are easily
taken.
Pheasant shooting usually begins the
latter part of October and closes with tine
final Christmas "bsttue"
Notwithstanding high walls, gentleness
of keepers, and all possible preventives,
many pheasants leave the demesnes, seek
ing the outer hedges and bog grasses,
where they fall a prey to the suares of ten
ants and guns of the poachers. There
fore few days before pheasant shooting
begins, all the outside help at the castle
starts in circle miles from the demesne
and concentrating toward the same, shout
and "best" with a terrific hullabsloo, thus
driving many back within the preserves.
Then MILFORD and his friends dressed as for
snipe- shooting on the moors and provided
each with two doubled barreled, breech-
loading, center-fire fowling pieces of No.
IL bore, man for reloading and another
for carrying cartridges, begin the slsugh-
ter. The sportsmen are stationed in sd
vance at the edges of open places. The
gsmekeeper, who is a sort of master of
ceremonies, brings his assistants or cheat
ers" into line behind. Then they move
forward, perhaps ten yards apart the
keeper, who knows every bush, hedge,
copse or tree, directing the heaters" in
every movement. In an instant the pre-
serve is perfect bedl-m of yells and ex-
plosions. The men yell, "Hi-yi-i-il" as
they "beat" the bushes, calling, as the
startled birds flash from copse to copse,
"Cock to the rightl"-"Co aboveln-
''To the left, cocki"-"H. yi-i-il-cock,
cock, cockl-Right ahead, cockl"-while
the death-dealing guns answer with such
rapidity that they often get too warm to
be held in the sportsmen's hands. This
goes on all day, with an hour for q lunch
of stew and beer at two, when the "beat-
ers" are furnished q liberal amount of
bread, cheese and beer; and their assist
ants, who follow the hunters with carts
and donkeye by night have often gath