The Pheasants. 323 



due to a repetition of tur, imitative of the coo of a pigeon. 

 From this cornes the French TowrtereUe, the German Tuvtel- 

 taiibe, the Italian Tortora, the Spanish Tortola, the Swedish 

 Turtur D-ufva; but whence comes the Portuguese Rola I do not 

 know. 



PHASIANID.E (THE PHEASANTS). 



This family will not occupy us long, inasmuch as it contains 

 but one species known in England, and that one almost in a, 

 state of semi-domestication ; and consequently its habits and 

 economy thoroughly well known : for I pass over the Turkey of 

 American origin, and the domestic fowl and Peacock of Indian 

 birth, as having no claim to a place in the fauna of Wiltshire. 

 I will but call attention, in passing, to the difference in plumage 

 which the sexes of this family exhibit; to their polygamous 

 habits ; to the precocious nature of the young birds, which are 

 no sooner hatched from the shell than they can follow their 

 parents and feed themselves ; to their custom of dusting their 

 feathers in any dry heap they can find; and to the horny, 

 conical, and sharp spur with which the tarsus of male birds of 

 th$is family is furnished. They derive their name, like other 

 descendants of ancient and honourable lineage, from their an- 

 cestral seat on the banks of the Phasis, in Colchis, which flows 

 from the Caucasus into the Black Sea at its extreme eastern 

 point, and from Asia Minor, whence Jason is said to have im- 

 ported them into Europe. It is not improbable that the Komans 

 introduced the Pheasant into England. It is certain that it 

 was protected by the laws of the country at a very early period, 

 from the following extract from Dugdale's ' Monasticon Angli- 

 canum': 'That in the first year of Henry I. (A.D. 1100) the 

 Abbot of Amesbury obtained a license to kill pheasants.'* 



124. PHEASANT (Phasianus Colchicus). 



Alone of this family is entitled to demand admission into tho 

 ranks of British birds ; for though originally of foreign extrac- 

 ' Science Gossip' for 1884, p. 243. 



212 



