THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY ij 



to have maintained their value, as among the expenses 

 of the same Sir John Nevile, for, as he writes it, 

 ' the marriage of my son-in-law Roger Rockley and 

 my daughter Elizabeth Nevile, the 14th of January, 

 in the seventeenth year of the reigne of our soveraigne 

 lord King Henry VIII.,' is the following ; ' Item, in 

 Pheasants 18, 24 shillings.' We trace the birds in 

 ' A. C. Mery Talys,' printed by John Rastell, where 

 we read of ' Mayster Skelton, a poyet lauryat, that 

 broughte the bysshop of Norwiche ii fesauntys.' ' 



Pheasants seem to have been established in East 

 Anglia at an early period. The ' Household Book ' of 

 the L'Estranges of Hunstanton for 1532 includes an 

 entry : ' Itm, in reward the vij day of Jun to 

 Fulm'ston servante for bryngynge iij fesands.' A 

 similar note appears the year following : ' Itm, paid 

 the xij day of June to Towars for money that he laid 

 out at div's tymes when he went to take fesaunts.' 

 Some of the entries cited by Stevenson recall the ex- 

 cellent sport which pheasants afforded those country 

 gentlemen who kept hawks. These for example : 

 ' Itm, a fesant kylled wt ye goshawke ; ' ' ij fesands and 

 ij ptriches kylled wt the hawk.' ''■ 



In this connection it may be remembered that 



' English Cyclopedia, 'Nat. Hist.,' vol. iv. p. 283. 

 " Birds of Norfolk, vol. i. p. 362. 



