BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
on authentic evidence, is that the bird was 
officially recognised in the reign of Harold, 
and that it had already come under the aegis 
of the game laws in that of Henry I, during 
the first year of which the Abbot of Amesbury 
held a licence to kill it, though how he con- 
trived this without a gun is not set forth in 
detail. Probably it was first treed with the 
aid of dogs and then shot with bow and arrow. 
The original pheasant brought over by the 
Romans, or by whomsoever may have been 
responsible for its naturalisation on English 
soil, was a dark-coloured bird and not the 
type more familiar nowadays since its 
frequent crosses with other species from the 
Far East, as well as with several ornamental 
types of yet more recent introduction. 
In tabooing the standpoint of sport, 
wherever possible, from these chapters, 
occasional reference, where it overlaps the 
interests of the field-naturalist, is inevitable. 
Thus there are two matters in which both 
classes are equally concerned when con- 
sidering the pheasant. The first is the real 
or alleged incompatibility of pheasants and 
foxes in the same wood. The question of 
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