COMMON PHEASANT. 283 



relate to birds, more particularly those in use for the table, I 

 shall occasionally quote : some of them will be found curious, 

 either for the mode by which the birds were taken, or the 

 equivalent given for them. The first in reference to our pre- 

 sent subject is,—" Item, to Mr. Asheley's servant for bryng- 

 yng of a Fesant Cocke and four Woodcocks on the 18th day 

 of October, in reward, four-pence." The second, — " Item, a 

 Fesant kylled with the Goshawke." The third, — " a notice, 

 two Fesants and two Partridges killed with the Hawks." I 

 may here remark that the ordinary weight of a Pheasant is 

 about two pounds and a half; but under the influence of 

 abundance of food in quiet preserves, where they are not 

 disturbed perhaps more than once in a season, and that for a 

 Christmas battue, the size attained is scarcely credible. Mr. 

 Fisher, a poulterer in Duke Street, St. James's, in January 

 1839, exhibited a cock Pheasant which weighed four pounds 

 and one quarter. Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, in their 

 Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, published in the 

 fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, 

 mention, that at Campsey Ash, where the Pheasants are Avell 

 fed with potatoes, buckwheat, and barley, a cock Pheasant 

 has been killed which weighed four pounds and a half; and 

 some winters since, my friend, Mr. Louis Jaquier, then of the 

 Clarendon, produced a brace of cock Pheasants Avhich Aveighed 

 together above nine pounds. The lighter bird of the two 

 just turned the scale against four pounds and a half; the 

 other bird took the scale down at once. The weights were 

 accurately ascertained in the presence of several friends to 

 decide a wager, of which I was myself the loser. 



One peculiarity of the Pheasant must not be passed over, 

 which is, its inclination to breed with other gallinaceous 

 birds, not of its own species. This tendency exists also in 

 a remarkable degree among the different species of Grouse, as 

 will be hereafter noticed, with examples. Edwards long ago 



