THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 



feathers is rather widely barred with black.' ' As re- 

 gards Ireland, Thompson has shown that the pheasant 

 must have been introduced into that country prior 

 to the year 1589, when Robert Payne stated in his 

 tract, ' A Brife Description of Ireland,' that ' there 

 be great store of wild swannes, cranes, phesantes, 

 partriges, heathcocks, plouers greene and gray, 

 curlewes, woodcockes, rayles, quailes, and all other 

 fowles much more plentifull than in England.' Fynes 

 Morison, who was in Ireland from 1599 till 1603, 

 observes that there are ' such plenty of pheasants, as 

 I have known sixty served up at one feast.' Smith 

 seems to have imagined that pheasants were indige- 

 nous to the island, as in his ' History of Cork ' it is 

 remarked : 'They are now [1749] indeed very rare, 

 most of our woods being cut down.' At the present 

 time the pheasant is common in various wooded parts 

 of the island, where it has been preserved and pro- 

 tected. The same may be said of its existence in 

 Holland, Belgium, and Northern Germany. 



Enormous numbers of pheasants are killed in 

 Austria every year. Thus, no fewer than 142,912 

 birds of this species were shot by Austrian sportsmen 

 in the year 1891. Northern Europe is obviously less 

 suited to the pecuUar requirements of the pheasant ; 



' Catalogue of Birds, vol. x.xii. p. 321. 



