220 THE PHEASANT 
unable to withstand cold and hunger together, or become so weak 
that it would fall a prey to the smaller rapacious animals, who are 
not a match for it when it is strong and active. A healthy cock 
Pheasant has been known to beat off a cat ; a sickly one would be 
unable to compete with a Magpie or Jay. It is, in fact, an exotic 
running wild, and enabled to do so only by the care of those who 
help it to surmount the inconveniences of a life spent in a foreign 
land. 
The Pheasant is said to have been brought originally from Colchis, 
a country on the shores of the Black Sea, and to have derived its 
name from the river Phasis, the famous scene of the expedition of 
the Argonauts, bearing date about 1200 years before Christ. From 
this epoch it is said to have been known to the Athenians, who 
endeavoured to acclimatize it for the sake of its beauty as well as 
the delicacy of its flesh. The Romans received it from the Greeks ; 
but it was little known, except by name, in Germany, France, and 
England, until the Crusades. The custom was then introduced 
from Constantinople of sending it to table decorated with its tail 
feathers and head, as a dish for kings and emperors—a special honour 
until that time confined to the Peacock. Willughby, in the seven- 
teenth century, says of it that, from its rarity, delicacy of flavour, 
and great tenderness, it seems to have been created for the tables 
of the wealthy. He tells us, too, that the flesh of Pheasants caught 
by hawking is of a higher flavour, and yet more delicate than when 
they are taken by snares or any other method. 
The kings of France greatly encouraged the naturalization of the 
Pheasants in the royal forests, both as an object of sport and as an 
acquisition to the festive board, and were imitated by the nobles 
and superior clergy. In the fourteenth century, all the royal forests, 
the parks of Berry and the Loire, all the woods and vineyards of the 
rich abbeys, were peopled with Pheasants. The male bird was 
protected by the title of ‘ Royal game of the first class’, and the 
killing of a hen was forbidden under the severest penalties. During 
the period between the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XVI its 
estimation increased. During the revolution royal edicts were little 
heeded. Pheasants, no less than their owners, forfeited their dig- 
nity, which, however, rose again somewhat under the empire. 
Waterloo, and succeeding events, brought desolation to the Phea- 
santries as well as to the deer-parks of France ; and now the royal 
bird, French authors tell us, is likely to disappear from the country. 
Already, the space which it occupies is reduced to a thirtieth part of 
the national territory. The centre of this privileged province is 
Paris ; its radius is not more than five-and-twenty leagues, and is 
decreasing every year. Pheasants have disappeared from the dis- 
tricts of the Garonne and Rhone, while in Touraine and Berry a few 
only are to be found in walled parks. 
If the Pheasant should ever, in this country, lose the protection of 
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