HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



243 



Heliogabalus, another Roman Emperor, in his osten- 

 tation and extravagance, is said to have fed the lions 

 of his menagerie with these birds. Caligula, that 

 monster of every crime, had placed in his temple a 

 statue of gold, the exact image of himself, which was 

 daily dressed in garments corresponding to those he 

 wore ; hen pheasants and other birds' were offered in 

 sacrifice to it, while a vile troop of his corn-tiers pro- 

 strated themselves at its foot at the very time when 

 Caligula was wishing that the Roman people had 

 but one neck, that he might sever it at a blow. 

 Among other dishes that used to grace a grand 

 supper-table was one containing pheasant sausages, 

 which were made of the fat of this bird, chopped very 

 small, mixed with pepper, gravy, and sweet sun-made 

 wine, to which was added a small quantity of hydro- 

 garum. Garum was a sauce made with brine, and 

 mixed with the blood of mackerel or other fish. It 

 appears to have been largely used in making savoury 

 dishes by the Roman cooks of that period. — (See 

 Soyer's " History of Foods.") 



There are no records to afford a clue as to when 

 and by whom the pheasant was first introduced into 

 Britain. The Romans perhaps imported it with 

 other imperial luxuries, but that it was protected by 

 the laws of the country at a very early period is 

 shown by the following extract from Dugdale's 

 Monasticon Anglicanum. " That in the first year of 

 Henry I. (iioo) the Abbot of Amesbury obtained a 

 license to kill pheasants." 



In the Life of Thomas a Becket, by Canon Morris, 

 it is mentioned that the archbishop, on the day of his 

 martyrdom (1170), dined at three o'clock, and that 

 his dinner consisted of a pheasant. — " One of his 

 monks said to him, Thank God, I see you dine more 

 heartily and cheerfully to-day than usual. His answer 

 was, A man must be cheerful who is going to his 

 Master." 



The price of a pheasant in 1299 (being the 27th of 

 Edward I.) was fourpence, a mallard three halfpence, 

 and a plover one penny. In the early days of the 

 Tudors, pheasants, and other game, used to be found 

 in the woods and fields on the outskirts of the 

 metropolis of that period, now covered with streets 

 of houses and a teeming population. We find an Act 

 of Parliament in the reign of Henry VII. entitled 

 the Forferture for taking of Feasants and Part- 

 ridges or the eggs of Hawkes and Swans ; and a pro- 

 clamation dated 7th July, in the 27th of Henry VIII. 

 in which the king recites his great desire to preserve 

 the pheasants, partridges, and hares from his 

 palace at Westminster to St. Gyles's-in-the-Fields, 

 as well as from thence to Islington, Hampstead, 

 Highgate and Hornsey Park, and that of any person 

 of any rank or quality presumed to kill any of these 

 birds, they were to be imprisoned as also to suffer 

 such other punishment, as to His Highness should 

 seem meet. 



Sir T. Elyot, a writer in the days of Henry VIII. 



states in his " Castle of Health," that "the pheasant 

 excedeth all fowls in sweetness and holsomness, 

 and is equal to capon in nourishment, but the part- 

 ridges, of all fowls, is most soonest digested, and 

 have in them more nutriment." 



Jeffreson, in his amusing work, " A Book about the 

 Table," tells us that the epicures and physicians of 

 Elizabethan days spoke handsomely of the pheasant. 

 Logan calls it " meat for princes and great estates, 

 and for poor scholars when they can get it." One 

 would think more highly of the epicurean discern- 

 ment of the eulogists of a noble bird, had they not 

 recommended us to stew it with celery — a miserable 

 way of spoiling fine fare that cannot be denounced 

 too warmly, though boiled pheasants and celery are 

 still seen on the tables of intelligent, albeit whimsical 

 gourmands. 



Mr. Stevenson, in his " Birds of Norfolk," mentions 

 that the earliest notice of the pheasant in that county 

 occurs in the Household Book of the L'Estranges, of 

 Hunstanton, dating back to 1519; and containing some 

 curious entries, in which this bird is specially men- 

 tioned, both as a " quary " for hawks and occasional 

 article for the luxury of the table. Thus, in the 

 nth year of Henry VIII. (1519), appears, amongst 

 other " rewardes for bryngyng of psents — " Item : to 

 Mr. Asheley svnt for bryngyng of a fesant cocke an 

 iiij woodcocks ye xviijth daye of Octobre reward 

 iiij, also Item : a fesant of gyste (articles received in 

 lieu of rent) ; and twice in the same year we find 

 the following record. Item : a fesant kylled wt ye 

 goshawke, and again, in 1533, ij fesands and ij 

 ptrychyes (partridges) kylled wt the havvke. 



The following extract is from the " Magazine of 

 Natural History," on the habits of the pheasant, by 

 Mr. C. Waterton, of Walton Hall, whose Essays on 

 Natural History, with that of White's Selborne, ought 

 to be on the bookshelf of every intelligent game- 

 keeper, and in every village library in these days of 

 education and school-boards, 



Mr. Waterton, speaking of the destruction of the 

 eggs of this bird by vermin, &c., attributes it, in many 

 cases, to the custom of looking up their nests. A 

 track is made through the grass, which is sure to be 

 followed up by the cat or weasel, often to the direful 

 cost of the setting bird, or the hen pheasant flies 

 precipitately from the nest on being disturbed ; the 

 eggs are left uncovered, and become cold, or fall an 

 easy prey to the carrion crow or other destroyer of 

 eggs. In the wild state, when wearied nature calls for 

 relaxation, the pheasant first covers her eggs, and 

 then takes wing directly without running from the 

 nest. Waterton tells us he once witnessed this fact 

 from the sitting-room window in the attic story of his 

 house. He saw a pheasant fly from her nest in the 

 grass, and on her return she kept on the wing till she 

 dropped down' upon it. By this instinctive precau- 

 tion of rising immediately from the nest on the bird';4 

 departure, and its dropping on it at its return, there 



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