358 Letters, Announcements, S^c. 



INIancliester, 20th April, 1809. 



Sir, — It may interest your readers to know that the most 

 ancient record of the occurrence of the Pheasant in Great 

 Britain is to be found in the tract " De inventione Sanctse Crucis 

 nostrse in Monte Acuto et de ductioneejusdem apud Waltham/' 

 edited from manuscripts in the British Museum by Professor 

 Stubbs, and published in 1861"^. The bill of fare drawn up by 

 Harold for the Canons^ households of from six to seven persons, 

 A.D. 1059, and preserved in a manuscript of the date of circa 

 1177, was as follows (p. 16) : — 



" Erant autera tales pitantise unicuique canonico : a festo 

 Sancti Michaelis usque ad caput jejunii [Ash Wednesday] aut 

 xii merulse, aut ii agausese \_Agace, a magpie (?) Ducange] aut 

 ii perdices, aut unus phasianus, reliquis temporibus aut ancse 

 [Geese; Ducange^ aut gallinse/' 



Now the point of this passage is that it shows that Phasianus 

 colchicus 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 con- 

 querors, who naturalized the Fallow Deer in Britain. 



The eating of Magpies at Waltham, though singular, was not 

 so remarkable as the eating of Horse by the monks of St. Galle 

 in the time of Charles the Great, and the returning of thanks to 

 God for it : — 



" Sit feralis equi caro dulcis sub cruce Chiisti ! " 



The bird was not so unclean as the horse — the emblem of 

 Paganism — was unholy. 



I am, &c., 



W. Boyd Dawkins. 



Sill, — In the Natural-History Museum of Edinburgh, for- 

 merly in connexion with the University, but since 1855 included 

 in the Museum of Science and Art, are two eggs of Alca im- 

 pennis, which have not been noticed in any published list. 



* The Foundation of Walthaui Abbey. The Tract ' De iuventione ' 

 &c. By William Stubbs, M.A. Oxford and London ; 18G1. 8vo, ])p. GO. 



