PHEASANT 7s 
PHEASANT, Mid.-Eng. Fesaunt and Fesaun, Germ. Fasan and 
anciently Fasant, Fr. Faisan—all from the Latin Phasianus or Phasiana 
(sc. avis), the Bird, brought from the banks of the river Phasis, now 
the Rioni, in Colchis, where it is still abundant, and introduced by 
the Argonauts, it is said in what passes for history, into Europe. As 
a matter of fact nothing is known on this point; and, judging from 
the recognition of the remains of several species referred to the 
genus Phasianus both in Greece and in France,! it seems not 
impossible that the ordinary Pheasant, the P. colchicus of ornitholo- 
gists, may have been indigenous to this quarter of the globe. If it 
was introduced into England, it must almost certainly have been 
brought hither by the Romans; for, setting aside several earlier 
records of doubtful authority,” Bishop Stubbs has shewn that by the 
regulations of King Harold in 1059 “wnus phasianus” is prescribed 
as the alternative of two Partridges 
or other birds among the “ pitantiz ” 
(rations or commons, as we might now 
say) of the canons of Waltham Abbey, 
and, as Prof. Dawkins has remarked (J0is, 
1869, p. 358), neither Anglo-Saxons nor 
Danes were likely to have introduced it 
into England. It seems to have been early under legal protection, 
for, according to Dugdale, a licence was granted in the reign of 
PHEASANT. (After Swainson.) 
morhynchus. My. Seebohm (Charadriide, p. 451, pl. xvii.) refers it to the genus 
Phegornis, with which it seems to have little in common; but makes some amends 
by giving a good figure of it. The only specimens now known to exist appear to 
be those at Washington, and there is good reason to fear that the species may 
be extinct—the victim, most likely, of rats or other predacious animals that 
have found their way to its very confined haunt—a case parallel perhaps to that 
of Prosobonia leucoptera of Tahiti (see SANDPIPER). 
1 These are P. archiacit from Pikermi, P. altus and P. medius from the 
lacustrine beds of Sansan, and P. desnoyersi from Touraine (A. Milne-Edwards, 
Ois. foss. de la France, ii. pp. 229, 239-248). 
2 Among these perhaps the most worthy of attention is in Probert’s translation 
of The Ancient Laws of Cambria (ed. 1823, pp. 367, 368), wherein extracts are 
given from Welsh triads, presumably of the age of Howel the Good, who died in 
948. One of them is ‘‘ There are three barking hunts: a bear, a squirrel, and a 
pheasant.” The explanation is ‘‘ A pheasant is called a barking hunt, because 
when the pointers come upon it, and chase it, it takes to a tree, where it is 
hunted by baiting.” Ihave not been able to trace the manuscript containing 
these remarkable statements so as to find out what is the original word rendered 
“Pheasant” by the translator; but a reference to what is probably the same 
passage with the same meaning is given by Ray (Synops. Meth. Animal. pp. 213, 
214) on the authority of Llwyd or Lloyd, though there is no mention of it in 
Wotton and Clarke’s Leges Wallice (1730). A charter (Kemble, Cod. Diplom. 
iv. p. 236), professedly of Edward the Confessor, granting the wardenship of 
certain forests in Essex to Ralph Peperking, speaks of “ fesant hen” and ‘ fesant 
cocke,” but is now known to be spurious. 
