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by no means so easy to kill as many persons seem to 

 imagine, and it must be remembered that many 

 game-preservers have no other means of giving their 

 friends a day's out-of-door amusement. Nor can it 

 be denied that the rearing and preservation of 

 Pheasants give employment to many, and supply our 

 markets Avith excellent and wholesome food, besides 

 enabling the owners of preserves to make very 

 welcome presents to friends and neighbours. But 

 the whole question has been so often and so ably 

 argued by more competent pens than ours, that we 

 are quite content to leave it as its stands. There 

 aj)pears to be no reason to doubt that the Pheasant 

 w^as introduced into England by the Romans, and 

 the bird has now become so spread over most parts 

 of Europe that it is almost impossible to say where 

 it is really indigenous. The only country in which 

 we have personally met with it in an unpreserved 

 and perfectly wild state is on the shores of the 

 Adriatic, near Alessio in Albania, where it is, or was, 

 by no means uncommon in the low-lying forest 

 country near the mouth of the river Drin ; it is also 

 to be found in considerable numbers near Salonica 

 and in certain other localities in European Turkey. 

 But the best authorities seem to agree that the true 

 home and headquarters of the species are the shores 

 of the Caspian, the valleys of the Caucasus and 

 northern Asia Minor ; very closely allied forms, 

 however, are to be met with from the Caspian, 

 through Asia to the shores and islands of China. 

 White and pied varieties of the Pheasant are very 

 much too common in our county, as elsewhere, the 

 most remarkable and least objectionable, to our 

 minds, being that which, for some mysterious reason, 



