DATE OF INTRODUCTION. 25 



offered cautiously to them. They would fly up to the window, 

 and would feed in company with the common poultry, but if 

 anybody approached them unawares, off they went to the 

 nearest covert with surprising velocity j they remained in it 

 till all was quiet, and then returned with their usual con- 

 fidence. Two of them lost their lives in the water by the 

 unexpected appearance of a pointer, while the barndoor fowls 

 seemed scarcely to notice the, presence of the intruder; the 

 rest took finally to the woods at the commencement of the 

 breeding season. This particular kind of timidity, which 

 does not appear in our domestic fowls, seems to me to oppose 

 the only, though at the same time an unsurmountable, bar to 

 our final triumph over the pheasant. After attentive 

 observation, I can perceive nothing else in the habits of the 

 bird to serve as a clue by which we may be enabled to trace 

 the cause of failure in the many attempts which have been 

 made to invite it to breed in our yards, and retire ,to rest with 

 the barndoor fowl and turkey." 



With regard to the date of the introduction of the 

 pheasant into England, Mr. Thompson, writing in 1866, says 

 he knows of no records which afford any clue to the period 

 when it was first brought into this country ; and that though 

 probably its accHmatisation does not date back further than 

 the Norman Conquest, yet it is possible thit our Roman 

 invaders may have imported it at a much earlier period, with 

 other imperial luxuries. 



Lord Lilford considers its introduction by the Romans as 

 conclusively proved. In his " Notes on the Birds of North- 

 amptonshire," he writes : " There appears to be no reason to 

 doubt that the pheasant was introduced into England by the 

 Romans, and the bird has now become so spread over most 

 parts of Europe that it is almost impossible to say where it is 

 really indigenous." 



This suggestion is possibly near the truth, for the pheasant 

 has been shown by Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins to have been 

 naturalised in this country upwards of eight hundred years. 



