PHEASANT. 363 



with strawberries for desert, that delicious fruit being 

 kmdly presented in the next "Itm" by a "Doktere 

 Dosjns," whose servant receives the accustomed douceur. 

 It was, moreover, too well thought of as an object of 

 sport, even then, to be killed out of season, as in 1533 

 we again find " ij fesands and ij ptrychyes kylled wt the 

 hauk ;" and amongst certain amounts " allowed in 

 bylls," *^ Itm pd the xij day of June to Towars for 

 money that he leid out at div's tymes when he went 

 to take fesaunts." At this period, no doubt, though 

 partially under the protection of man, the pheasant was 

 a denizen of the woods, finding its own sustenance to a 

 great extent, and in weight would probably have con- 

 trasted strangely with our present highly fed specimens, 

 which not unfrequently, when kiUed high up in the air, 

 burst open on the ground from the force of their fall. 

 Although the requirements of the " battue," on highly 

 preserved manors, necessitate a thoroughly artificial 

 state of hatchiag and rearing, yet there are also many 

 portions of the county where the pheasant exists in a 

 perfectly wild state, and thrives well under the protec- 

 tion of the game laws, both soil and climate being alike 

 favourable. It is in such districts, almost exclusively, that 

 one still meets with the pure Phasianus colchicus, free 

 from any trace of the ring-necked or Chinese cross in its 

 plumage, but offering at the same time a poor contrast 

 to those hybrid birds both in size and weight. Beisides, 

 the thick undergrowth in woods and plantations, phea- 

 sants are particularly partial to low damp situations, 

 such as alder and osier carrs, by the river side. In this 

 county, also, stragglers from some neighbourmg coverts 

 are not unfrequently found on the snipe marshes 

 surrounding the broads, where the sportman, following 

 up his dog at a "running point," is suddenly startled 

 by the whirr of a noble " long-tail," when never drea m i n g 

 of any larger game than rails or water-hens. 

 3a2 



