12 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT 



a month, and feed it upon a certain fixed quantity of 

 flour or barley meal, the food being kneaded into 

 small balls and moistened with olive oil, in order that 

 it may be swallowed easily. Care must be taken to 

 prevent a bird so treated from obtaining any unsuit- 

 able food.' The Italians appear to have continued 

 pheasant rearing ever since those early days. That 

 they adhered to the system in the sixteenth century is 

 evidenced by an incidental comment of Aldrovandus, 

 who takes exception to an erroneous remark of Palla- 

 dius as to the period of time required for the incuba- 

 tion of pheasant eggs. Aldrovandus remarks that he 

 cannot decide the point by his own experience, for he 

 has never reared pheasants, but he knows a man at 

 Florence who writes that the eggs of the pheasant re- 

 quire to be incubated for the same length of time as 

 those of fowls, and that the chicks hatch out on the 

 twenty-first day. Nowadays, pheasants are seldom 

 reared in Italy, except by wealthy landowners. Two 

 hundred and fifty pheasants were recently shot in the 

 course of a day's sport near Genoa. ^ 



I have not succeeded in ascertaining at what 

 precise period the pheasant became naturahsed in 

 France, but it is probable that it was introduced into 



' De Re Rtistica, lib. i. cap. xxix. 

 Field, January 19, 1895. 



