THE PHEASANT. 



WE think of him as a bird of English woods and 

 glades ; and indeed he is pretty well everywhere 

 now, especially in our southern and eastern 

 counties. Nevertheless he is a foreigner — no bird more 

 so ; and if it were not for the jealous jjrotection accorded 

 him, he would speedily disappear from our island. 



Some say that he was brought here by the Romans, 

 and that hundreds of years before even Rome was built 

 the Greeks brought him from his original home on the 

 river Phasis, which flows into the Black Sea. Thither, 

 says tradition, came the Argonauts in quest of the Golden 

 Fleece. With many an adventure they came, and with 

 many an adventure they returned. They brought back 

 the Fleece, and they brought back also a number of the 

 beautiful long-tailed birds which they found stalking 

 about on the banks of the river. 



Whether the Pheasant came to England in a Roman 

 galley or in some trading vessel of a later day, it is not 

 easy to say for certain. But there is no doubt that for 

 many centuries this handsome bird has lived here, and has 

 figured, like the peacock, on many a banquet-board, before 

 king and prelate and merchant prince. That redoubtable 

 priest, Thomas a Becket, is said to have dined off such a 

 dish on the day of his murder in Canterbury Cathedral. 



But it is only in quite recent times that the rearing of 

 Pheasants in this country has been carried out on a really 

 large scale. " It is safe to say," one writer asserts, " that 



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