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PHEASANT. 



COMMON PHEASANT. BING-NECKED PHEASANT. 



Phasianus ColcMcus, LINNAEUS. LATHAM. 



Phasianus A Pheasant. ColcMcus Of Colchis. 



IN treating of the game birds, I foresee that it will be 

 difficult to confine myself strictly to their natural history. 

 When one comes to think, to speak, or to write of the 'flood 

 and field,' I ask any reader who has handled, though it may 

 have been in days gone by, 'the rod and the gun,' whether 

 nature and art are not here so closely connected together, that 

 their confines are easily overstepped, and in fact one will be 

 out of bounds, trespassing perhaps, before he knows or thinks 

 where he is. I believe, indeed, that the old common law of 

 England gives you leave and license to follow your game when 



struck, but 1 must not forget that I am now holding 



the pen and no other implement, and must guide, and not 

 be guided by, the 'grey goose wing.' I will only say that, 

 as a magistrate for the East Biding of Yorkshire, I have always 

 felt that a poacher, if not a really bad character, was not 

 necessarily a being so utterly depraved, as to be deserving of 

 nothing but to be prosecuted with the 'utmost rigour of the 

 law.' 



The Pheasant, though not strictly speaking one of our native 

 birds, having been introduced formerly' it is supposed, as 

 imported by its names, from the banks of the River Phasis, 

 in Colchis, in Asia yet, as now and long since naturalized 

 among us, claims and receives a place accordingly in every 

 natural history. 



This splendid bird is plentiful in a great part of Europe 

 the north excepted, and in Asia, from the shores of the Black 

 Sea to Tartary, Persia, the East Indies, China, and its northern 

 region, the formerly famous and marvellous Cathay. It is 



