PHEASANT. 95 



PJiaslanus colchicas had become naturalized in England 

 before the Norman invasion ; and as the English and Danes 

 were not the introducers of strange animals in any well- 

 authenticated case, it offers fair presumptive evidence that it 

 was introduced by the Roman conquerors, who naturalized 

 the Fallow Deer in Britain."* 



It appears by Dugdale's ' Monasticon Anglicanum ' that 

 at the commencement of the reign of Henry I. (a.d. 1100) 

 license was given to the Abbot of Amesbury to kill hares 

 and Pheasants ; and, according to Echard's History of Eng- 

 land, in A.D, 1299, during the reign of Edward I. the price 

 of a Pheasant was fourpence ; the value of a Mallard being 

 three-halfpence, a Plover one penny, and a couple of Wood- 

 cocks three-halfpence. To these early notices may be added 

 one contributed by the Saturday lievieiv critic of the 1st 

 Edition of Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier's admirable treatise on 

 ' Pheasants,' f to wit that Thomas a Becket, on the day of 

 his martyrdom (December 29, 1179), dined on a Pheasant 

 and enjoyed it, as it would seem from the remark of one of 

 his monks that " he dined more heartily and cheerfully that 

 day than usual." 



Mr. Harting, in his * Ornithology of Shakspeare,' gives 

 numerous interesting details and quotations, shewing the 

 esteem in which this bird was held for the table in somewhat 

 more recent times. It appears, by Leland's account of the 

 feast at the enthronization of George Nevill, Archbishop of 

 York in the reign of Edward IV., that two hundred 

 " fessauntes " were served with other meats; and in the 

 ' Household Book ' of the L'Estranges of Hunstanton, from 

 A.D. 1519 to A.D. 1578, there are such entries in the reign 

 of Henry VIII. as " vj. fesands and ij. ptrychys kyllyed wt 

 the hauks." "Item, to Mr. Ashley's servant for brynging 

 of a Fesant Cocke and four Woodcocks on the 18th day of 

 October, in reward, four-pence." " Item, a Fesant kylled 

 with the Goshawke." Similar allusions are made in the 



• Ibis, 1869, p. 368. 



t Seep. IS of the -Jtid Edition (1881), to wliich the Editor is under great 

 obligations. 



