The Common Pheasant 79 
found in a tract, De inventione Sanctis Cruets nostra in Monte Acuta et de ductione 
ejusdem apud IValtham} It is a bill of fare, drawn up by Harold, for the Canon's 
household of seven persons, a.d. 1059. The passage is as follows: " Erant autem 
tales pitantiae uni cuique canonico : a festo Sancti Michaslis usque ad caput jejunii 
[Ash Wednesday] aut xii merulse, aut ii aganseas [Magpies] aut ii perdices, aut units 
phasianus, reliquis temporibus aut ancae [Geese] aut gallina?." 
Dugdale, in his Monasticon Anglicannm, states that the Abbot of Amesbury 
(a.d. 1 100) obtained licence to kill hares and Pheasants in the first years of the 
reign of Henry I. In 1245 the Custos (Master of Game) of the Bishopric of 
Chichester was ordered to send to the king for his use at Easter twenty-four 
Pheasants ; whilst Daniell in his Rural Sports quotes Echard's History of England 
as the authority for the statement that in 1299 the price of a Pheasant was fourpence. 
Thomas a Becket (a.d. 1170) was said to have dined on a Pheasant on the day of 
his martyrdom. In the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Pheasants are fre- 
quently referred to in writings of the period. Their price seems to have advanced to 
one shilling or thereabouts. 2 From this date onwards the bird seems to have been 
well known throughout England. 
The date of introduction into Ireland seems to be unknown. Thompson says that 
"in the year 1589 it was remarked to be common," whilst Fynes Morrison, who lived 
in Ireland from 1599 to 1603, observes that there are "such plenty of Pheasants as 
I have known sixty served up at one feast," &c. Gray, in the Birds of the West of 
Scotland, says: "The first mention of the Pheasant in old Scotch Acts is in one dated 
June 8, 1594, in which year a keen sportsman occupied the Scottish throne." James 
ordained that any person found "shooting deer, harts, pheasants, foulls, partricks," &c, 
shall pay the fine of a hundred pounds. 
At the present day it has been acclimatised throughout the United Kingdom, 
except in the most barren islands of the Outer Hebrides 3 and the Orcades. But 
little deviation from the true type occurred until the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, when the Chinese Ring-necked Pheasant {P. c. torquatus) was introduced. 
Since this date the coalescence of the two forms has been so general that it is almost 
impossible to find P. eolckiens in its original purity. Within the last few years, at 
the request of many shooting proprietors and tenants, considerable numbers of the 
true form have been introduced from Hungary and the Caucasus, and it is now 
possible to purchase them from some of the game dealers. 
Habits. — Except in rare instances, where wounded or tamed birds have overcome 
their fears of man, the Pheasant consistently refuses all attempts at domestication, and 
proves, like the reindeer, that it is a wild creature and somewhat shy by nature. In 
this country and in Southern Europe and Asia Minor, its home is thick plantations 
with tangled underbrush and long grasses, especially so those that are well watered 
with streams and pools, and where the soil is of a gritty and sandy character. They 
1 Edited from manuscripts in the British Museum by Professor Stubbs, and published in 1861. 
2 Interesting information concerning Pheasants at this period will be found in Harting's Ornithology of Shahisptare and 
Tegetmeier's Pheasants. 
3 There are a few in North Harris, introduced by Sir James Mathieson, but they cannot be called residents, and will, 
I think, soon die out. 
