In the keeper's year there is no moment so delightful as when he finds his first wild pheasant's egg. The earliest egg of the season is looked on almost like a nugget of gold. You may observe a keeper turning out of his way to pass along the sunny side of a hedgerow favoured by pheasants, craning his neck to look at the far side of a tuft of withered grass, and with his stick turning over the dead leaves of a likely hollow. Day after day, in early April, he perseveres in his quest; and though he may find scores of depressions scooped out by the hens--"scrapes" he calls them--it may be a long while before his search is rewarded by the sight he yearns for. He is appeased--though he has but found something found thousands of times before, only a pheasant's egg. But it is the first of a new season, and precious beyond all others. There may have been eggs already in his pens. The penned birds are protected from wind and cold rains. They live on a well-drained plot facing the south, and they are treated so liberally to rich foods, spices, and tonic drinks that they can hardly help laying early. The first egg is a satisfaction, but nothing like the first wild-laid egg. At the earliest chance, the finder meets a brother keeper, and his story of the finding loses nothing in the telling, while it gains a good deal from the envy on the brother keeper's face. * * * * * Pheasants' Eggs By the middle of April, the gamekeeper finds that a few of his pheasants are sitting. They are the older hens. Those that begin to lay early in April do not often lay more than ten or twelve eggs before beginning to sit. But it is not unusual for a young hen to lay fifteen, seventeen, or even more eggs. That the older hens should lay fewer eggs suggests that they have no more than they can furnish with the heat necessary for hatching. Later on, in warmer weather, a pheasant can manage half as many eggs again as in early spring. The old hens have eggs well on the way towards hatching before hens still in their first year have begun to lay. Pheasants commonly lay eggs in each other's nests. We have known a pheasant even to lay eggs in a thrush's nest, built on the ground beneath a furze-bush. Like the nest, three of the four thrush's eggs were destroyed by the intruder. The keeper well knows how to take advantage of this slovenly habit of his pheasants. About ten days before the time when he expects them to begin to lay in earnest, he makes up a number of false nests, into which he puts either imitation nest-eggs, or addled eggs saved from the last season. Having some respect for the sweetness of his pocket, he takes the precaution of boiling the addled eggs for several hours in lime-water. He makes up the false nests in places where the eggs shall be comparatively safe; his great object being to induce his birds to lay at home, and not to stray away into his neighbour's coverts. The method saves much time in searching for nests.