PRACTICAL PHEASANT REARING. 



this somewhat personal digression which is, how- 

 ever, necessary as my excuse for so boldly entering 

 the lists to tell again an oft-told tale I will attempt 

 no longer to ramble, but to hark back to where I 

 should long ago have anived at, and that is, the 

 " beginning." 



At what period the pheasant was first introduced 

 into England has never, so far as I am aware, been 

 accurately determined. If the legend in Daniel's 

 11 Rural Sports " is, however, to be taken as gospel, 

 B.C. 1250 witnessed his first introduction into Europe. 

 No matter, he is, and has ever been, a welcome guest, 

 and the traveller who lured him first from his native 

 thickets in Thibet, Bootan, Thesa, and the mountains 

 which separate those countries from Hindustan, 

 deserved well of his country. Now that sport has in 

 this country been somewhat curtailed in its character, 

 thanks to the mischievous efforts of Sir William 

 Harcourt, culminating in the Ground Game Act a 

 piece of legislation which all classes now appear to 

 equally abhor, and which has failed, thanks to sound 

 English common sense, even to accomplish its insidious 

 intention of setting landlord and tenant by the ears 

 winged game and the successful rearing thereof 

 becomes of more than ordinary importance, being 

 pretty nearly all that we have to depend upon for 

 sport. Fortunately the tame bred, hand-reared, 

 keeper-coddled Poult, at w r hich Mr Punch so often 

 slings his merry jeer, turns, when November comes 



