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PHEASANT. 4.45 
PHASIANUS COLCHICUS. 
PHEASANT. 
(PLaTE 21.) 
Phasianus phasianus, Briss. Orn. i. p. 262 (1760). 
Phasianus colchicus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 271 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Latham, Temminck, Naumann, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 
Phasianus marginatus, Wolf, Taschenb. i. p. 291 (1810). 
The Pheasant never was a really wild bird in the British Islands, 
although to all appearances it is so at the present time; but it is an abuse 
of terms to call any bird wild whose existence is entirely dependent on the 
protection of keepers. The date of its introduction to this country is 
unknown. Pheasants appear in the bills of fare as far back as these have 
been handed down to us, even in the times of the Saxon kings before the 
Norman conquest, from which circumstance it has been inferred that they 
were introduced by the Romans ; but this hypothesis is of course purely 
guess-work. Little or no interest attaches to the distribution of the 
Pheasant in the British Islands, as there appears to be no part of the 
United Kingdom, even to the Outer Hebrides, where they have not been 
introduced, and‘ where they are not found in a more or less semi-domesti- 
cated state. The protection of sufficiently extensive cover, together with 
more or less regular artificial feeding in frosty weather, seems to be all 
that 1s required. 
The Common Pheasant has been acclimatized in most parts of Europe ; 
but its true home appears to be in the extreme west of Asia, in the western 
portions of the basin of the Caspian Sea, and the southern and eastern 
portions of the basin of the Black Sea. In a wild state it is a common 
resident in the valleys of the Caucasus up to an elevation of 3000 feet ; 
along the shores of the Caspian from the delta of the Volga in the north 
to as far east as Asterabad on the southern shores; in the northern parts 
of Asia Minor as far south as Ephesus; and, curiously enough, on the 
island of Corsica. It has been introduced and now lives in a wild or 
semi-domesticated state in every country in Europe, with the exception of 
Spain and Portugal and the northern parts of Scandinavia and Russia. 
The Pheasant has several very near allies, the geographical distribution 
of which has puzzled many ornithologists from the anomalies which it 
appears at first sight to present. These difficulties, however, may be 
disposed of in two ways. We may either assume that the white neck- 
collar in all the examples west of China is the result of the migration or 
importation of East-Chinese birds, which have interbred with the resident 
