PHEASANTS IN COVERT AND AVIARY 



Pheasant. Every preserve in England and on the Continent, 

 inhabited at all by Pheasants, contains this bird. But it is 

 difficult to meet with one that has not at some time or other 

 received an infusion of foreign blood, and consequently 

 presents evidences in its plumage, of its ancestors having 

 lived in the vicinity of P. Torquatus or P. Versicolor, which 

 species have also been largely introduced into Europe. It 

 is a matter of regret that this hybridism should be permitted, 

 for it in no way improves any of the species, and gives to 

 us a race of mongrels, which at least to the ornithologist's 

 eye, is anything but agreeable."* 



I have said that no species of Pheasant has been longer 

 known than the present, and that I am not wrong in this 

 assertion, is shown by the discovery of a curious fact which 

 tells us that it has been an inhabitant of England for over 

 eight hundred years. Mr W. Boyd Dawkins, in a letter to 

 the editor of The Ibis, dated 20th April 1859, says : 



"It may be of interest to your readers to know that the 

 most ancient record of the occurrence of the Pheasants in 

 Great Britain is to be found in the tract De inveniione 

 Santce Cruets notre en Monte Acuta et de ductione ejusdem 

 ap2id Waltham, edited from manuscript in the British 

 Museum, and published in 1864." 



Now the point of this passage is that it shows that 

 P. Colchicus had become naturalised in England before the 

 Norman invasion, and as the English were not introducers 

 of strange animals in any well authenticated case, it offers 



• Elliot's views in relation to hybridism are certainly not correct, there being 

 abundant evidence, as strikingly manifested by crossing P- Mongolictis with 

 P. Colchicus, that a hybrid may excel in every way, that of either of the in- 

 dividual species. 



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