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HABITS OF THE PHEASANTS. 
French preacher was good enough to inform his hearers that the 
pheasant was food for the clergy only, so that, made part of their 
glorious bodies, it might be raised to heaven, and not with profane 
eaters descend to the infernal regions. So highly was it esteemed, as 
to acquire an almost sacred character. In 1415, the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, at a sumptuous entertainment, swore a solemn oath, over a 
roasted pheasant, that he would lead his wandors against the infidel 
Turks. 
The favourite habitat of the pheasant is the thick leafy forest, with 
its ferny growth and intertangled grasses ; or the hazel copse watered 
by a rippling stream; or the reedy coverts of a low osier-fringed island. 
Sucli were the features of ancient Colchis; such the character of the 
valley of the classic Phasis, whence our bird was imported into Europe, 
and whence he derives his English name, through the Latin phasianus 
and the French faisan. Such, at all events, are the favourite haunts of 
the Phasianus colchicus, or common pheasant. And a glorious creature 
he looks, — to quote the language of a popular writer, — as he fares along 
the grassy glade of a wood, now raising his head as if to listen, while 
perchance a sunbeam falls upon his burnished neck, then stooping to 
pick up a fallen acorn, while the long plumes of his tail sway in the 
wind like silken pennons, or, startled by the murmur of the long reeds 
which revealed the secret of Midas, plunging among the underwood, or 
risinof with labouring wings to the ivied branch of a tree. He loves 
the open woods, but not the dense shades of the forest ; and always 
and everywhere seeks the vicinity of water. The more thickly the 
ground is covered with low bushes, the better he is pleased; for his 
natural timidity makes him desirous of a ready refuge in case of danger. 
Of one thing you may be sure, he will never be found in dry and 
unfertile fields, or in the neighbourhood of coniferous trees. 
A day's life of a pheasant is easily sketched ; its incidents are few, 
and unless the sportsman or the poacher intervene, they present 
little variety. He goes forth early, and spends hour after hour in 
gliding from one bush to another, skirting the thorny hedges, and 
wandering on the borders of the woods ; with an occtisional excursion 
into the neighbouring fields for the purpose of feeding, according to the 
