308 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



the same as in the adult." I have a young bird of 

 the year in my collection, shot on the 1st of Sep- 

 tember, which differs from this description, as there 

 is one row of the black and white feathers on the 

 side of the neck making its appearance, and many of 

 the wing- coverts are the same as in the adult. 



The bird is the smallest of British Pigeons, and 

 the egg is the smallest of our Pigeon's eggs, but 

 otherwise, like them, quite white. 



Family PHASIANID^E. 



COMMON PHEASANT, Phasianus colchicus. The 

 Common Pheasant, as its Latin name imports, is an 

 inhabitant of Colchis, in Asia Minor, and of the 

 country about the river Phasis, whence it was im- 

 ported into Europe (for there is no native Euro- 

 pean Pheasant), in very early times, it is said, by 

 Jason and the Argonauts ; and it may have been so 

 at all events, the theory is as good as any other : 

 from Greece it was imported into Italy, and carried 

 by the Romans into many countries in Europe and 

 probably into England, although we do not hear of it 

 here till the reign of Edward the First, in the twenty- 

 seventh year of whose reign (A. D. 1299) the price of 

 a Pheasant was said to be fourpence, of a Mallard 

 three half-pence, a Plover one penny, and of a couple 

 of Woodcocks three half-pence ; and Richard the 

 Second's cook, who wrote a sort of cookery-book, 



