AXIMALS INTRODUCED FOR SAKE OF SPORT 267 



of the Stork and the Nightingale, it must have been very 

 scarce indeed. 



It is interesting that Leslie should have mentioned the 

 abundance.of the Pheasant with " vthiris natiounis" (France 

 perhaps, whence he came in the train of Queen Mary, or 

 maybe England), for this abundance makes its scarcity in 

 Scotland at so late a date all the more striking. Yet before 

 the sixteenth century had ended, the Pheasant had been 

 naturalized in Scotland, and had found a protector in the 

 ready arm of the Scots law. In June 1594 an Act was 

 passed by which it was 



ordained that quhatsumever person or persones at ony time hereafter sail 

 happen to slay deir, harts, phesants, foulls, partricks, or uther wyld foule 

 quhatsumever, ather with gun, croce bow, dogges, halks, or girnes, or be 

 uther ingine quhatsumever or that beis found schutting with ony gun 

 therein 



should pay a penalty of "ane hundreth [100] punds." 



I think the Scottish laws make clear, however, that even 

 yet the Pheasant was a bird of great rarity, for many sub- 

 sequent enactments omit reference to it. Take, for example, 

 the very comprehensive Statute of 1600 already quoted 

 (p. 203), the Statute of 1621, or even that of 1707, none of 

 which specifies Pheasants though many other game birds 

 are mentioned by name. John Taylor in his Pennyles 

 Pilgrimage recounts with relish the variety of fare he 

 received in the year 1618 at the hands of "my good Lord 

 Erskine" and mentions of birds "pidgeons, hens, capons, 

 chickens, partridge, moorecocks, heathcocks, caperkellies, 

 and termagants [ptarmigan]" but no Pheasant. 



The establishment of the Common Pheasant as a game 

 bird in Scotland may, therefore, be said to date from the 

 close of the sixteenth century, when it was probably brought 

 across the borders from England. I have no doubt that its 

 late appearance in Scotland was due to the poverty of the 

 country as a whole, and of the barons in particular. For 

 even under favourable conditions of shelter and cultivation 

 the Pheasant will not thrive, and probably could not exist, 

 without some protection and attention. No one can allege 

 that the bleak Scotland of Queen Mary's time was a 

 sheltered or well cultivated land, and the barons, ready 

 enough though they were to hawk or hunt the native birds, 



