178 DICTIONARY OF NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 
hither by the Romans. It seems to have been early under 
protection for, according to Dugdale, a licence was granted 
in the reign of Henry I to the Abbot of Amesbury to kill 
Hares and Pheasants, and that later they were artificially 
reared and fattened appears from Upton, who wrote about 
the middle of the 15th century, while Henry VIIT seems 
from his privy purse expenses to have had in his household 
in 1532 a French priest as a regular “ fesaunt breder,” and 
in the accounts of the Kytsons of Hengrave in Suffolk for 
1607, mention is made of wheat to feed Pheasants, Partridges 
and Quails. In ancient times Pheasants were taken in 
snares as well as by Hawks. In Barlow’s prints (1655) 
this bird (called ‘‘ Feasant—Phasianus’’) is shown being 
pursued by a Hawk. 
PHEASANT Duck: The PINTAIL. (Beverley, Yorkshire.) 
Puitie or Pure: The HOUSE-SPARROW. _ (Provincial.) 
Swainson says it is from the note. It may originate, 
however, in Skelton’s poem “ Philip Sparrow.” The names 
are also applied to the HEDGE-SPARROW. 
PHILLIPENE: The LAPWING. (Ireland.) 
Pariie’s Futmar: SCHLEGEL’S PETREL. (Godman.) 
PHILOMEL: The NIGHTINGALE. The name is frequently 
met with in poetical and other allusions to this bird, as well 
as several times in Shakespeare, and arises from the classical 
tale (to be met with in Ovid’s ‘‘ Metamorphoses,” bk. v1, 
fab. 6) of the transformation of Philomela, daughter of 
Pandion, King of Athens, into a Nightingale. Philomela, 
finding herself deceived by Tereus, had her tongue cut 
out by him to hinder her from revealing the truth; being 
finally turned by the gods into a Nightingale, whence the 
name of Philomela and the poetic allusion to her supposed 
sad recapitulation of her wrongs. It was formerly supposed 
that the bird sang with its breast impaled upon a thorn, 
thus accentuating “the well-tun’d warble of her nightly 
sorrow.” This popular error is alluded to by Shakespeare 
in “The Passionate Pilgrim ”’ :— 
She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn, 
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty, 
That to hear it was great pity. 
Sir Philip Sidney, also, in one of his sonnets, says that 
this bird 
Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making. 
Fletcher and Pomfret, also, among the later poets, allude 
to it. 
