PHEASANT 713 



PHEASANT, Mid.-Eng. Fesaunt and Fesaun, Germ. Fasan and 

 anciently Fasant, Fr. Faisan all from the Latin Phasianus or Phasiana 

 (sc. avis), the Bird brought from the banks of the river Phasis, now 

 the Rioni, in Colchis, where it is still abundant, and introduced by 

 the Argonauts, it is said in what passes for history, into Europe. As 

 a matter of fact nothing is known on this point ; and, judging from 

 the recognition of the remains of several species referred to the 

 genus Phasianus both in Greece and in France, 1 it seems not 

 impossible that the ordinary Pheasant, the P. cokhicus of ornitholo- 

 gists, may have been indigenous to this quarter of the globe. If it 

 was introduced into England, it must almost certainly have been 

 brought hither by the Romans; for, setting aside several earlier 

 records of doubtful authority, 2 Bishop Stubbs has shewn that by the 

 regulations of King Harold in 1059 " unus phasianus " is prescribed 

 as the alternative of two Partridges 

 or other birds among the "pitantia3" 

 (rations or commons, as we might now 

 say) of the canons of Waltham Abbey, 

 and, as Prof. Dawkins has remarked (Ibis, 

 1869, p. 358), neither Anglo-Saxons nor 



,-. TIT v .L j j-i. PHEASANT. (After Swainson.) 



Danes were likely to have introduced it 



into England. It seems to have been early under legal protection, 



for, according to Dugdale, a licence was granted in the reign of 



morhynchus. Mr. Seebohm (Charadriidse, p. 451, pi. xvii.) refers it to the genus 

 Phegornis, with which it seems to have little in common ; but makes some amends 

 by giving a good figure of it. The only specimens now known to exist appear to 

 be those at Washington, and there is good reason to fear that the species may 

 be extinct the victim, most likely, of rats or other predacious animals that 

 have found their way to its very confined haunt a case parallel perhaps to that 

 of Prosobonia leucoptera of Tahiti (see SANDPIPER). 



1 These are P. archiaci from Pikermi, P. altus and P. medius from the 

 lacustrine beds of Sansan, and P. desnoyersi from Touraine (A. Milne-Edwards, 

 Ois. foss. de la France, ii. pp. 229, 239-243). 



2 Among these perhaps the most worthy of attention is in Probert's translation 

 of The Ancient Laws of Cambria (ed. 1823, pp. 367, 368), wherein extracts are 

 given from Welsh triads, presumably of the age of Howel the Good, who died in 

 948. One of them is " There are three barking hunts : a bear, a squirrel, and a 

 pheasant." The explanation is " A pheasant is called a barking hunt, because 

 when the pointers come upon it, and chase it, it takes to a tree, where it is 

 hunted by baiting." I have not been able to trace the manuscript containing 

 these remarkable statements so as to find out what is the original word rendered 

 "Pheasant" by the translator; but a reference to what is probably the same 

 passage with the same meaning is given by Ray (Synops. Meth. Animal, pp. 213, 

 214) on the authority of Llwyd or Lloyd, though there is no mention of it in 

 Wotton and Clarke's Leges Wallicse (1730). A charter (Kemble, Cod. Diplom. 

 iv. p. 236), professedly of Edward the Confessor, granting the wardenship of 

 certain forests in Essex to Ralph Peperking, speaks of " fesant hen " and " fesant 

 cocke," but is now known to be spurious. 



