The Silver, Soemmerring, and Swinhoe Pheasants mate in pairs; the other familiar kinds are polygamous, and from one to five or six females may be kept with one male. Pheasants may be fed the same things as are fed to fowls, and in much the same manner, but there is one important difference which the pheasant breeder must carefully observe. Fowls will stand abuse in the matter of diet much better than pheasants will. In feeding the latter more attention must be given to providing regular supplies of green food, to having all food sound and good when fed, and to regulating the quantity given for a meal so that it will not lie about and become sour or soiled before it is eaten. [Illustration: Fig. 175. Fowls and pheasants in same yard on a New England poultry farm] Most pheasant fanciers use large bantams or small common hens to hatch and rear the young pheasants. The period of incubation is from twenty-two to twenty-four days. Until they are weaned from the hens the little pheasants may be managed as young chickens are, but with the same attention to variety of food and to moderation in feeding that has been specified for the old birds. A small number with a good range on grass or in a garden will pick much of their food. Many of the older works on poultry which treated of the care of pheasants recommended for the young birds a great variety of foods not easily provided. Nowadays the most successful amateur fanciers feed either a mixture of the common small grains or some of the commercial mixtures which contain, in addition to these, a number of seeds and grains not much used by poultry keepers who buy their grains separately in bulk. Stale cracked corn, which is dangerous to all young poultry, is especially to be avoided in feeding young pheasants. After the young pheasants are weaned, they must be kept in covered runs, or their wings must be clipped to prevent them from flying. A large pheasantry is operated on the same general lines as a plant where birds are grown in small numbers. The method is simply an extension of that just described. When only one kind of pheasant is kept, the inclosed yard is sometimes made very large, and a hundred or more birds are put together. This is not good practice with any kind of poultry, and is no doubt responsible for much of the trouble which those growing pheasants in large numbers have had. At aviaries where there are large collections of pheasants, including many rare and costly kinds, the yards are always made large enough to give the birds good sanitary conditions, and as a rule each family of adult birds, whether composed of two or more, has a yard to itself. CHAPTER XV SWANS