A BANTAM'S JOB

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 5, 6 July 1939, Page 26

A BANTAM'S JOB

RARE PHEASANT EGGS

HATCHING EXPERIMENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, June 17

Sydney aviculturists are taking a keen interest in a Melbourne attempt, with the aid of a broody bantam hen, to hatch a batch of pheasant eggs sent from England by flying-boat. \

The pheasant eggs were consigned by Mr. P. J. Lambert, of Yorkshire, to Messrs. Allan Jaques and Norman McNance, Melbourne members of the Ornamental Pheasant Society of England. By the time Mr. Lambert had complied with Customs demands for certificates of freedom of disease he had missed the air mail with some satyr tragopan pheasant eggs, but the consignment which arrived included the eggs of other rare pheasants, aviary-bred in Yorkshire, and certified free of all disease. Some of the eggs cost £3 each. They came packed in damp moss. Four of the pheasants represented in the consignment have never been seen in Australia. Mr. Jaques said that the really difficult thing was not to bring pheasant eggs across the world by air maili but to induce a bantam to go broody in mid-winter, corresponding to the only English time in which the pheasant eggs were available. Artificial incubaition is useless for pheasant eggs. i A Sydney aviculturist said that while j j the process of hatching eggs by broody j bantam or fowl was not new, the j handicap to the successful importa-1 tion of eggs had been the length of the journey by sea, and the consequent difficulty in maintaining their fertility. The rearing of pheasants had become popular in Australia recently, but hitherto it had been confined largely to the more common and hardy types. The facilities offered by air transport, he thought, would open an interesting field for experiments with the rarer species from both England and the Continent.

While pheasants have been introduced, into Australia chiefly for exhibition, attempts have been made in the past to acclimatise the birds for sporting purposes. Except on King Island, Bass Strait, between Tasmania and the mainland, where English pheasants are well established, and provide good sport for shooters, the birds have not thrived.