PHEASANTS AND WOODCOCK 239 



a menu for the Feast of St. Michael, and in it we 

 find " thrushes, magpies, geese, partricks and 

 fesants." It is thus clear that the Pheasant was 

 naturalized in England before the Norman Con- 

 quest, and as the early English and the Danes 

 showed little interest in such matters, the presump- 

 tion is that the bird was originally brought here by 

 the Romans, who are also known to have intro- 

 duced the fallow deer to Great Britain. The 

 superior edible qualities of the bird were clearly 

 recognized even in an age which could stomach 

 Magpies. In a.d. 1290 the market price of a 

 Pheasant ran up to fourpence as against three- 

 half-pence for a Duck or a couple of Woodcock. 



So for well-nigh a thousand years the Pheasant 

 of Phasis, who had now gained the title of the Old 

 English Pheasant, lived and thrived upon British 

 soil. But now serious opposition appeared. To- 

 wards the close of the eighteenth century a new 

 Chinese Pheasant — P. torqiiatus by name — was 

 introduced. 



The males of this species were small but hardy, 

 and were distinguished by a white ring about the 

 neck. In a very brief period these warlike invaders 

 overpowered Colchicus and appropriated his wives, 

 and to-day the white ring, the mark of the con- 

 queror, will be found on the neck of almost every 

 cock Pheasant which decorates the game-dealer's 

 window. This fact is of especial interest to natural- 

 ists, for it shows how rapidly one race may super- 

 sede another. 



One other peculiarity in pheasant-life may be 

 noted. As in the human species we have the New 



