PHEASANT SHOOTING 



to the Extremity of the Tail, one Yard five inches ! ' A former 

 owner of my copy has added to this a marginal note to the 

 effect that he, J. T. L., had killed one of 54 oz. A bird of 3| lbs. 

 or 3f lbs. is now considered one of normal weight. In 1859 

 the Field mentioned a bird which weighed 5f lbs. ; the heaviest 

 pheasant known {Field, 14th August 1875) weighed one ounce 

 under 6 lbs. Maize-fed birds attain to a greater weight than 

 others. The increase in size has followed development of the 

 hand-rearing system. 



The connection of the hand-reared pheasant with sport is 

 rather misty until the nineteenth century. In old days the 

 birds were bred as poultry. Palladius, whose work on 

 Husbandry is assigned to about 1420, gives directions for their 

 management : you were to take none of more than one year 

 old, as birds above that age were ' infecunde ' : you were to 

 allot one cock to every two hens and require each hen to sit on 

 20 eggs : ' common hens ' might be used for hatching : one 

 such should be given 15 pheasants' eggs. The chicks were 

 fed for the first fifteen days on boiled barley sprinkled with 

 wine : after that, bruised wheat, locusts and ants' eggs. We 

 can trace the bird in its domestic character for about three 

 hundred years from the time of Palladius, but there is at least 

 room for the supposition that it was sometimes turned out for 

 sport. In the sixteenth century there was a royal game 

 preserve round London, which extended from Westminster 

 to St. Giles in the Fields and thence to Islington, Hampstead, 

 Highgate and Hornsey Park, and Henry viii. maintained at 

 Westminster a ' frenche Preste the fesaunt breder.' ^ Henry, 

 as we know, was a true sportsman, and it is only reasonable 

 to think that he flew his hawks at the ' fesants ' so raised. 



If his Majesty hawked hand-reared pheasants, no doubt 

 his subjects did the same ; but whether for falconry or merely 

 to have their necks wrung for the table, pheasants continued 

 to be kept in captivity. The act of 1603-1604 already 

 mentioned (1 Jac. i., c. 27, § 4) forbade the sale or purchase to 



1 Privy Purse Expenses of Henry vm., 22nd December 1533. 



109 



