THE PHEASANT 
AS birds are to be considered throughout 
these pages from any standpoint but 
that of sport, much that is of interest in 
connection with a bird essentially the 
sportsman's must necessarily be omitted. At 
the same time, although this gorgeous 
creature, the chief attraction of social gather- 
ings throughout the winter months, appeals 
chiefly to the men who shoot and eat it, it is 
not uninteresting to the naturalist with op- 
portunities for studying its habits under 
conditions more favourable than those en- 
countered when in pursuit of it with a gun. 
In the first place, with the probable ex- 
ception of the swan, of which something is 
said on a later page, the pheasant stands 
alone among the birds of our woodlands in 
its personal interest for the historian. It is 
not, in fact, a British bird, save by accli- 
matisation, at all, and is generally regarded 
as a legacy of the Romans. The time and 
manner of its introduction into Britain are, 
it is true, veiled in obscurity. What we know, 
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