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PHEASANT. 

 Phasianus colchicus (Z.). 



Resident ; semi-domesticated, common, generally distributed. 



The first Yorkshire mention of the Pheasant is found in 

 the account of the great banquet at Cawood, in 1466, given in 

 honour of the enthronement of Archbishop Nevell. Included 

 in the provision made were : " Fessauntes, 200." (Leland's 

 " Collectanea.") In the Northumberland Household Book, 

 begun in 15 1 2, at Earl Percy's Yorkshire castles, " Fesauntes " 

 were priced at " I2d." " for my Lordes owne Mees." The 

 bird is also mentioned at the marriage feast of Sir John 

 Neville's daughter at Chevet, near Wakefield, in 1526, and 

 again at the Lammas Assizes in 1528, when Sir John was 

 High Sheriff; his expenses including "12 ffesants £1" 



Thomas Allis, 1844, wrote : — 



Phasianus colchicus. — Common Pheasant — As common as shooters 

 and poachers will allow them to be. 



Allis's pithy remarks as to the status of this weU-known 

 game-bird are as true at the present day as they were in 

 1844, and it requires but little further notice here ; it is 

 common where preserved, and generally distributed, except 

 in the highest portions of the West and North Riding dales, 

 and on the moorlands, though not altogether absent even in 

 those places. 



The ring-necked variety (P. torquatus) has been so largely 

 introduced of late years that the old-fashioned race (P. 

 colchicus) is now seldom found pure, the majority of the birds 

 exhibiting more or less signs of hybridity with the former 

 species. 



The late John Cordeaux stated (" Birds of Humber 

 District," p. 79), that he had known several instances of 

 Pheasants flying across the estuary, four miles, on to the 

 Lincolnshire coast, though observers in Spurn neighbourhood 

 are sceptical on this point, and some ornithologists are doubtful 

 whether this bird can fly such a distance. At Redcar 



