184 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



It is now so crossed with the Chinese Ring-necked species 

 (P. torquatus) that it is extremely difiScult to obtain a speci- 

 men of the pure Colchican bird. That it was here before the 

 Norman Conquest appears certain, and the earliest record 

 may be found in the tract ' De inventione Sanctse Crucis 

 Nostrae in Monte Acuto et de ductione ejusdem apud 

 Waltham/ edited from a MS. in the British Museum by 

 Bishop Stubbs, and published in 1861. The bill of fare 

 drawn up by Harold for the Canons' households of from six 

 to seven persons, a.d. 1059, and preserved in a MS. of the 

 date of circa 1177, was as follows: — "Erant autem tales 

 pitantise unicuique canonico : a festo Sancti MichafiHs, usque 

 ad caput jejuni! (Ash Wednesday), aut xii merulse, aut ii 

 agansese [Agace, a magpie (?) Ducangel, aut ii perdices, aut 

 unus phasianus, reliquis temporibus aut ancse [Geese; Du- 

 cange\, aut gallinse." Which may be ^us translated: — 

 Such were the allowances to each Canon from Michaelmas 

 day to the beginning of the fast. Ash Wednesday : either 

 twelve blackbirds, or two magpies, or two partridges, or one 

 pheasant, at other times either geese or fowls. " Now the 

 point of this passage is that it shows that Phasianus colchicus 

 had become naturalized in England before the Norman 

 invasion ; and as the English and Danes were not the intro- 

 ducers of strange animals in any well authenticated case, it 

 offers fair presumptive evidence that it was introduced by the 

 Roman conquerors, who naturalized the Fallow Deer in 

 Britain." See Professor Boyd Dawkins, ' Ibis ' 1869, p. 358. 



The first mention of the Pheasant, after the Conquest, may 

 be found in Dugdale's ' Monasticon Anglicanum.' In the 

 first year of Henry I., a.d. 1100, "The Abbot of Amesbury 

 obtained a licence to kill Pheasants.'" In Mr. Dresser's 

 * Birds of Europe ' (vol. vii. p. 87) it is stated that in the 

 time of Edward I. Pheasants were sold at Sd. a brace. 



The earliest mention I have met with of Pheasants in 



