86 



feathers showing through here and there, especially on the flanks and neck, which latter with the upper 

 breast is faintly washed with vinous ; chin clay-yellow ; quills and wing-coverts dark brown, richly 

 variegated with clay-buff; centre of tail-feathers blackish, variegated with ochreous and dull rufescent, 

 the rest of the feathers being dull clay-ochreous vermiculated with blackish ; sides of head feathered, 

 and not bare; bill browner than in the male; legs dull brown; iris deep brown. 



Young. In their first-feather plumage the young of both sexes resemble the female ; but the young male 

 assumes the plumage of the old male in the autumnal moult, but at first the coloration of his plumage 

 is duller, and his tail is shorter than in the fully adult bird. 



Young in down. Sides of the head, throat, and underparts yellowish white ; forehead dull rusty yellowish 



with a dark brown central stripe, which broadens towards the nape ; behind the ear is a black spot ; 



upper parts generally yellowish, variegated with rusty red and brown, and with blackish brown stripes ; 



bill reddish white, brownish above ; legs yellowish white ; iris greyish. 

 When the young bird is eight or ten days old the quills commence to shoot out ; and the bird is soon able to 



flutter along. 



The present species is now tolerably widely distributed in temperate Europe, but almost every- 

 where in a nearly semiclomesticated state, except in the south-eastern countries, where it is in a 

 really wild condition ; and there alone the true species, without admixture of other blood, is to 

 be found. It is, however, a species which has been introduced by the agency of man ; and the 

 generally accepted tradition is that the Argonauts when returning from Colchis with the golden 

 fleece brought with them to Greece some live Pheasants, by which Greece was stocked with 

 these birds. This species has long been thoroughly acclimatized in Great Britain, having been, 

 so far as one can judge, introduced by the Romans; yet this is merely a conjecture, as there is 

 no direct evidence to show how and when it first came to our shores — though it was certainly 

 naturalized here prior to the Norman conquest; for Mr. Boyd Dawkins writes (Ibis, 1869, 

 p. 358) : — " It may interest your readers to know that the most ancient record of the occurrence 

 of the Pheasant in Great Britain is to be found in the tract ' De inventione Sanctse Crucis nostra? 

 in Monte Acuto et de ductione ejusdem apud Waltham,' edited from manuscripts in the British 

 Museum by Professor 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 manuscript of 

 the date of circa 1177, was as follows (p. 16) : — 



" ' Erant autem tales pitantae unicuique canonico : a festo Sancti Michaelis usque ad caput 

 jejunii (Ash Wednesday) aut xii merulse, aut ii agausese \_Agace, a Magpie f?) Ducange] aut ii 

 perdices, aut unus phasianus, reliquis temporibus aut ancse [Geese ; Ducange] aut gallinse.' 



"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 introducers 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. 



" The eating of Magpies at Waltham, though singular, was not so remarkable as the eating 

 of horse by the monks of St. Galle in the time of Charles the Great, and the returning of thanks 

 to God for it : — 



