2i8 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



Order GALLING. 



Family PHASIANID/E. 



Pheasant : Phasianus colchiais. 



An abundant resident wherever it is sufficiently preserved. It 

 was probably originally naturalized in England by the Romans, as 

 the earliest known record of it is in the year 1059 {Ibis, 1869, 

 p. 358, and 37. iii. 95). It is an interesting fact that the first 

 record of it in Britain is in the county of Essex. 



This record, according to Prof. Boyd Dawkins, is to be found in the tract, 

 " De inventione Sancta Crucis nostrae in Monte Acuto et deductione ejusdenx 

 apud Waltham," edited from MSS. in the British Museum, by Prof. Stubbs in 

 1861. The bill of fare drawn up by Harold, for the canon's household of from 

 six to seven persons, A.D. 1059, and preserved in a MS. of the date of about 

 A.D. 1 1 77, was to be : — 



" Erant autem tales pitantiae unicuique canonico ; a festo Sancti Michaelis 

 usque ad caput jejunii [Ash Wednesday], aut xii. merulae, aut ii. agauscae agace : 

 [a magpie (?) Ducange], aut ii. perdrices, aut unus phasianus reliquis temporibus 

 aut ancae [Geese : Ducange] aut gallinae." 



This passage affords fair presumptive evidence that the bird was introduced 

 before the Norman Conquest, and inasmuch as the English and Danes are not 

 known to have introduced any animals, the probability is that the Pheasant was 

 introduced by the Romans. 



Red-legged Partridge : Caccabis ri/fa. Locally," French 

 Partridge," " Frenchman." 



An abundant resident, though originally introduced. Round 

 Chelmsford it is now at least as abundant as the Common Partridge. 



Mr. J. Yelloly Watson writes (^Tendring Hundred in the Olden 7)/«i?, iii. ed., 



P- 234) :— 



"On the 8th June, 1763, he [William Henry de Nassau, fourth Earl of 

 Rochford] became Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of Spain ; and on 

 the 1st Jul}', Ambassador to the Court of France. When he returned, he is said 

 to have brought with him French or Red-legged Partridges ; and one of the 

 early breed, shot at St. Os3'th nearly a century ago, stuffed, and with a white 

 Pheasant in a case, is before us as we write. Soon after this, he introduced the 

 poplar trees from Lombardy, and two of the first planted in England are now to 

 be seen in the Park [at St. Osyth Priory]." 



Daniel, shooting near Colchester in 1777 (6.ii. 410), found a covey of fourteen 

 " Red-legs," which were flushed with difficulty, but after half an hour's exertion 

 one was got up, and " immediately perched on the hedge, and was shot in that 

 situation without its being known what bird it was." Two and a half brace 



