326 



sider as lowering her in the scale of creation, is, on the 

 contrary, an act of the greatest kindness and consideration. 

 Her want of beauty is her chief protection, and her very 

 humility saves her from a thousand perils." It is on this 

 account that some gamekeepers dislike having white or 

 pied Pheasants on the ground. Any prowling boy can 

 find a hen Pheasant on her nest, if she happens to have 

 any white feathers in her plumage. 



Among the various communications for which I am in- 

 debted to the kindness of the Rev. Richard Lubbock, of 

 Norfolk, are some extracts from the Household Book and 

 Privy Purse accounts of the Lestranges of Hunstanton, 

 from A.D. 1519 to 1578, communicated to the Society of 

 Antiquaries by D. Gurney, Esq., in 1834. Such of these 

 extracts as 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 present subject is, " Item, to Mr. Ashley's 

 servant for brynging of a Fesant Cocke and four Wood- 

 cocks 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 Nor- 

 folk and Suffolk Birds, published in the fifteenth volume of 

 the Transactions of the Linnean Society, mention, that at 



