86 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



next in quantity to those of the domestic fowl in the 

 ash and bone pits examined by experts during the 

 excavations at Silchester shows that the bird was a 

 common article of food. The country about Silchester 

 was a vast oak forest at that period, probably very 

 sparsely inhabited ; a portion of the forest exists to 

 this day, and is in fact one of my favourite haunts. 

 The fox, stoat, and sparrowhawk were not the only 

 enemies of the pheasant then : the wolf existed, the 

 wild cat, the marten, and the foumart ; while the list 

 of rapacious birds included the eagle, goshawk, buzzard, 

 kite, hen-harrier, peregrine falcon, and hobby, as well 

 as all the species which still survive, only in very much 

 larger numbers. Then there were the crows : judging 

 from the number of bones of the raven found at Sil- 

 chester we can only suppose that this chief and most 

 destructive of the corvidae was a protected species and 

 existed in a semi-domestic state and was extremely abun- 

 dant in and round Calleva probably at all the Roman 

 stations. It is probable that a few tame pheasants 

 escaped from time to time into the woods, also some 

 may have been turned out in the hope that they would 

 become acclimatised, and we may suppose that a few 

 of the most hardy birds survived and continued the 

 species until later times ; but for hundreds of years 

 succeeding the Romano-British period the pheasant 

 must have been a rarity in English woods. And a 

 rarity it remains down to this day in all places where 

 it is left to itself, in spite of the extermination of most 

 of its natural enemies. Unhappily for England the 



