Mm Cf wourn forrest Hrqunoan| carr HfL CH sie STA alt Ci nen pam \P New York State College of A griculture At Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. fur ano Fearurr S ERIES edited by ALFRED E. T. WATSON NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AT CGRNELL UNIVERCITY Department of Poultry Husbandry ITHACA, N. Y. THE PHEASANT FUR AND FEATHER SERIES. Epitep py ALFRED E, T. WATSON. THE PARTRIDGE. NATURAL HISTORY—By the Rey. H. A. MacpHEerson.— SHOOTING—By A. J. STUART- WortTLEy.— COOKER Y—By Grorce Saintsbury. With Illustrations by A. THorsurn, A. J. Sruart-WorT.ey, and C. Wuymper. Crown 8vo. 5s. (Ready. THE GROUSE. NATURAL HISTORY—By the Rev. H. A. Macpuerson.— SHOOTING — By A. J. Stuart- WortTLEY.—COOKER Y—By GrorGE Saintssury. With Illustrations by A. J. Stuart-WortLey and A. THorBURN. Crown 8vo. 5s. [Ready. THE PHEASANT. WATURAL HISTORY—By the Rev. H. A. MacrHerson.—SHOOTING—By A. J. STUART- WortTLEY.— COOKER Y—By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. With Illustrations by A, THorsurRN and A. J. StTuarr- WortLey. Crown 8vo. 5s. [Ready. THE HARE AND THE RABBIT. By the Hon. Geratp Lasce.tes, &c. [ln preparation. WILDFOWL. By the Hon. Joun Scorr-Montacu, M.P. &e. (ln preparation. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. London and New York, TG MK Pear ser LVONTISPICCE GOOD BEAT SPOILED BY FOX THE PHEASANT NATURAL HISTORY BY THE REV. H. A. MACPHERSON SHOOTING BY A. J. STUART-WORTLEY COOKERY BY ALEXANDER INNES SHAND ‘WITH INTENT TO COMMIT A FELONY’ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A, THORBURN LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CoO. AND NEW YORK 1895 All rights reserved y PREFACE THE design of the Fur and Feather Series is to present monographs, as complete as they can possibly be made, on the various English birds and beasts which are generally included under the head of Game. Books on Natural History cover such a vast number of subjects that their writers necessarily find it impossible to deal with each in a really comprehensive manner; and it is not within the scope of such works exhaustively to discuss the animals described, in the light of objects of sport. Books on sport, again, seldom treat at length of the Natural History of the furred and feathered creatures which are shot or otherwise taken ; and, so far as the Editor is aware, in no book hitherto published on Natural History or Sport has information.been given as to the best methods of turning the contents of the bag to account. vi PREFACE Each volume of the present Series will, therefore, be devoted to a bird or beast, and will be divided into three parts. The Natural History of the variety will first be given; it will then be considered from the point of view of sport; and the writer of the third division will assume that the creature has been carried to the larder, and will proceed to discuss it gas- tronomically. The origin of the animals will be traced, their birth and breeding described, every known method of circumventing and killing them—not omitting the methods em- ployed by the poacher—will be explained with special regard to modern developments, and they will only be left when on the table in the most appetising forms which the delicate science of cookery has discovered. It is intended to make the illustrations a prominent feature in the Series. The pictures in the present volume are after drawings by Mr. A. Thorburn, all of which, including the diagrams, have been arranged under the super- vision of Mr. A. J. Stuart-Wortley. ALFRED E. T. WATSON. CONTENTS NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT CHAP, II. III. IV. Il. ITI. By THE Rev. H. A. MacPHERSON PAG THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY THE PHEASANT OF THE WOODLANDS . eo RSS. FREAKS AND ODDITIES 3 ‘ ; ; oh OLD-WORLD FOWLING . : ‘ 6 POACHING IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY STYLE 8 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT By A. J. Stuart-WorTLEY PRINCE AND PEASANT, PEER AND PHEASANT . I0 How To SHOW PHEASANTS : ‘ . 12 How To Kitt THEM . . . ‘ ow DS vil CONTENTS Wie ee !!!TS™*« IV. WILpD-BRED AND HAND-REARED . 176 V. POLicy AND PROTECTION . 202 VI. LaANnpscAPE AND LARDER » 2t4 COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT . 227 By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND ILLUSTRATIONS By A. THORBURN Suggested and revised by A. J. STUART-WORTLEY (Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company) eo VIGNETTE: ‘WITH INTENT TO COMMIT A FELONY’ . é . : : . Title-page Goop BgaT SPOILED BY Fox. ij : Frontispiece UNDER THE BEECHES. To face p. 42 A Frosty NIGHT mB 5 e js ae 53 go OVER THE TALL TREES . sac. (24: DROPPED DEAD FAR BACK. ‘ ‘ sy 164 THE Last OF THE FLUSH ‘ 2 a ‘ 33 «= 174 COMING TO TERMS WITH THE KUNAWAY . . 5 182 A Rack FoR LIFE . F t ‘ >» 198 UNINVITED GUESTS . . , é fs i. 272 THE Count ; ; ; : » 236 Various DIAGRAMS IN THE TEXT BY A. J. STUART WoRTLEY vr NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT BY THE REV. H. A. MACPHERSON, M.A. CHAPTER I THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY THE acclimatisation of beautiful or useful birds has long exercised the ingenuity of men of divers races. The old Greeks and- Romans in particular bestowed great pains upon procuring rare and delicate birds to grace their menageries and poultry yards. Of game birds the peacock was a prime favourite ; but the pheasant was also held in high esteem., ‘O quanto noi dobbiamo d’ obligo a gli Argonauti !’ exclaims Raimondi of Brescia ; whether or not Jason and his heroes introduced this bird to civilisation, there can be no doubt that it was first carried to the shores of Southern Greece from the flat, forest-covered plains of the river Phasis, the modern Rion. That it was so is a matter for surprise ; because this species might apparently have been procured then, as now, from the coverts of Mount Olympus or the Saronic Gulf; but the evidence of a crowd of classical writers, to each of which I have taken the trouble to refer, convinces B2 4. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT me that Martial was correctly informed when he wrote the well-known couplet, Argiva primum sum transportata carina ; Ante mihi notum nil nisi Phasis erat.! The popularity which the pheasant enjoyed as an article of luxury passed into a proverb: ‘Not if you would give me the pheasants which Leogoras rears.’ Ptolemzus Euergetes, in describing the animals kept at the palace in Alexandria, took occasion to remark upon the tasty character of the flesh of the pheasant. During the later years of the Empire, Roman epicures vied with one another in the variety and costliness of their banquets, which were furnished with pheasants reared by contractors or supplied by their own country estates. Nor were the barbarians of the North slow to appreciate the good judgment of classical taste on the score of a roast pheasant. Alexander Neckam has worthily celebrated the esteem which the pheasant enjoyed in Britain during the reign of his foster- brother, Richard Cceur-de-Lion. I venture to think that his lines deserve to be better known than they ee In prima specie carnem quod judice luxu Judicat, ipse sapor phasidos ales habet. Deliciosus honos mensze, jocunda palati Gloria, vix stomacho gratior hospes adest.? ' Lib. xiii, Epig. xxii. * De Laudibus Divine Supientia, p. 383, THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 5 Polydore Vergil (who was sent to England by Pope Alexander VI.), after many years’ residence in this country, published a History of England in 1533. We learn from this distinguished Italian that ‘ the cheefe food of the Englishemen consisteth in flesh. . .. They have an infinite nomber of birdes, as well fostered in the howse as breeding in their woodds. Of wilde burdes these are most delicate, partiches, pheasaunts, quayles, owsels, thrusshes, and larckes.’! About a century later Gervase Markham passed upon the pheasant the following encomium : ‘ In the first rank I will place the Pheasant, as being indeed a Byrd of singular beauty, excellent in the pleasure of her flight, and as rare as any Byrd whatsoever that flies, when she is in the dish, and well cookt by a skilfull and an ingenious workman.’ ? Here it may be remarked that the pheasants which crow to-day in our home coverts, while no doubt remote descendants of those upon which the enthusiastic fowler was pleased to pass the verdict just recorded, are wot, as a rule, thoroughbred. It would be more accurate to say that they are the result of a 1 History of England, book i. p. 23. ” 2 Hunger’s Prevention ; or, the Art of Fowling, p. 199. 6 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT cross between the pheasant of the Caucasus and the Siberian or Ring-necked Pheasant of China. The latter bird is extremely handsome, but quite unknown to the majority of Englishmen ; for we should make a great mistake if we regarded the ring-necked pheasants seen in this country as typical Chinese pheasants. This point will be more easily understood if we try to follow a short statement of the distribution of the pheasant and its allies. I have noticed that even ornithologists sometimes talk about ¢e pheasant to which we usually apply that term, I mean Phasianus colchicus, as though it were confined to the forests and marshes which fringe the shallow and slimy waters of the slow-flowing Phasis or Rion. My friend Mr. W. H. Stuart, of Batoum, who has taken a great deal of trouble to procure the most recent information about the pheasants of the Black Sea, informs me that this species exists in many parts of the Caucasus. It fre- quents low-lying localities, notably those in the neigh- bourhood of the rivers Rion and Hura; but it is generally to be found in suitable spots. Its eastern range extends into Transcaucasia, while it reaches the Volga in a northerly direction. Mr. Ogilvie Grant defines the range of this wild pheasant as embracing Southern Turkey, Greece and the North of Asia Minor, as well as the Caucasus. He catalogues THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 7 between forty and fifty specimens as existing in the National Collection, obtained in many localities, from Bohemia and the Gulf of Salonica to the Caucasus.! It is to be regretted that our National Collection seems to possess no pheasants from the island of Corsica. I think we may say that Professor Giglioli almost re-discovered the pheasant in Corsica. He, at any rate, was the first to inform me that wild phea- sants existed on that island; in proof of which he produced a fine male and female which he had received from Corsica. Now, how the pheasant first reached Corsica is a very curious problem. It is conceivable that the original stock may have been introduced by some Roman officer in the days of the Empire. Professor Giglioli considers that the phea- sant is as much indigenous to Europe as to the swamps of the Caucasus ; @ gropos of which, he tells us that it is at the present time to be found in abundance upon the frontier of Dalmatia. It also frequents the woods which fringe the mouth of the river Drino in Albania, to which it certainly cannot have been introduced by any human agency.? There is documentary evidence that pheasants have been found in Corsica since 1531 ; indeed, one 1 Catalogue of Birds, vol. xxii. p. 322. 2 Avifauna Stalica, vol. 1. p. 336. 8 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT would naturally imagine that they had existed there since classical times. It is to be regretted that these Corsican pheasants are becoming rare, in consequence of the persecution to which they are subjected. The Italian Consul-General informed Professor Giglioli in 188z that fron a hundred and fifty to two hundred birds were killed in the canton of Ghisoni annually. It is impossible to suppose that the pheasant reached Cor- sica in the first instance by a voluntary migration across the sea from Italy ; but that the pheasants of that island are pure-bred examples of Phasianus colchicus may be affirmed without fear of contradiction. Thus the present range of this bird in a truly wild state extends from Corsica eastward into ‘Transcaucasia. Mr. Henry Seebohm contributed to the ‘Ibis’ an ex- cellent essay on Phasianus torguatus and its allies, in the course of which he remarks that the Siberian or Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus torquatus) and its allies are only found east of the meridian of Calcutta. They differ from the Common Pheasant (PAasianus colchicus) and its allies, which are only found west of the meridian of Calcutta, in the following particulars : The predominant colour of the rump and upper tail coverts of the ring-necked group of pheasants is green, instead of red, as in the Western birds ; secondly, the ring-necked birds have the wing coverts lavender-grey THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 9 instead of white or red. Of the seven pheasants which Seebohm classes together as races of the Siberian Pheasant (Phasianus torquatus), the most widely distributed is the typical ring-necked bird, the range of which extends from the Lower Amoor, through Manchuria, to Eastern China, where it is found as far south as Chang-shi and Canton. ‘It is easily diagnosed by two characters—neck with a white ring round it, and flank feathers buff, with the usual black tips. As might be expected from its wide range, it varies somewhat in colour in different loca- lities. Examples from the Corea have the ground colour of the mantle and flanks a paler buff than usual, but they do not approach P. formosanus in having any wider dark margins than is usual on the breast feathers. The feathers of the upper mantle also differ very considerably ; the centres are white in an example from the Amoor, and black with a narrow white shaft-streak in examples from Northern and Central China ; but other examples are intermediate in this respect.! The handsomest specimen of the Siberian Pheasant that I have personally examined was sent to me from the neighbourhood of Neu chwang. It has a very broad white collar of snowy purity, and the colours of 1 Jbis, fifth series, vol. vi. p. 314. to NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT the flank and rump are singularly brilliant. It is now in the Carlisle Museum. ‘The best known of the six remaining races of the Siberian Pheasant, as desig- nated by Mr. Seebohm, is the Versicolor Pheasant, a native of all the Japanese islands except Yezo. It is easily distinguished from its congeners by its green flanks. Returning to the Common Pheasant, we find that Seebohm recognises six races of red-rumped pheasants ; of these, the Persian Pheasant of the Attreck river seems to come nearest tothetype. The Prince of Wales’s Pheasant (Phasianus principals) chances to have been discovered in Afghanistan by Russian and English naturalists almost simultaneously. This pheasant nearly coincides with Shaw’s Pheasant, from which it is separated by the plateau of the Pamirs. The other two races recognised by Seebohm are Phasianus chrysomelas and the Mongolian Phea- sant. ‘The first-named is found in the lower valley of the Amu-Darya. Itis remarkable for the rich metallic green margins of the feathers of the mantle. When thoroughbred it has no white ring, but the majority of examples show a more or less perfect approach to the interrupted ring of the Mongolian Pheasant. This latter has a great deal of green onits rump and upper tail coverts.!| Some additional information upen this ' bis, fifth series, vol. v. p. 173. THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY II topic will be found in the twenty-second volume of the ‘Catalogue of Birds,’ written by Mr. Ogilvie Grant, a leading authority upon game birds. The Common Pheasant was a favourite in Italian poultry yards in the days of the Augustan Empire ; but its treatment in confinement does not appear to have been described by any writer prior to Palladius, who is conjectured to have flourished about the time of Valentinian and Theodosius. Palladius followed Varro in many of his rules about agriculture ; but ,his instructions for pheasant breeding appear to be original. He tells us that those who wish to rear pheasants should select birds of the previous year for that purpose, as old birds prove barren. Hen pheasants lay in March and April. A single cock will suffice to run with a couple of hens. The latter lay about twenty eggs apiece and only breed once in the season. It is best to place the eggs under domestic fowls, and a hen will cover fifteen pheasant eggs. Young pheasants should be fed for the first fortnight of their lives upon boiled barley meal which has been allowed to cool gradually. The meal re- quires to be sprinkled with wine for the first fortnight of their existence, after which we are advised to offer them pounded wheat, locusts and ants’ eggs. The proper way of fattening a pheasant is to shut it up for 12 NMATURAL 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 naturalised in France, but it is probable that it was introduced into ' De Re Rustica, lib. i. cap. xxix. ° Field, January 19, 1895. THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 13 both that country and England through the agency of Roman officers employed upon foreign service. French ornithologists show much remissness in ac- quainting us with the distribution of their native birds ; but M. Diguet states that the departments in which the pheasant is most numerous are those of the Seine- and-Marne, Seine-and-Oise, and of the Oise. He adds that the pheasant exists in a perfectly wild state in Touraine and Sologne.* Such efforts as have been made to establish the pheasant in Spain have proved, I understand, entirely futile. The case is very different with regard to Great Britain. Even here the earliest documen- tary evidence of the naturalisation of this bird is late, dating only from the eleventh century. The infor- mation in question was brought to light by the Bishop of Oxford, who discovered that the regulations of King Harold in the year 1059 allowed the canons of Waltham Abbey a ‘commons’ pheasant as the agree- able alternative to a brace of partridges. Dugdale’s ‘Monasticon’ is often quoted in support of a state- ment that Henry I. granted the Abbot of Amesbury a licence to kill pheasants in the year r100. The ‘Saturday Review’ states that Thomas Becket dined off a pheasant on the day he died, December 29 ' Le Livre du Chasseur, p. 64. 14 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT 1179. In France, as in England, the pheasant was early protected by the Crown. Thus we find that Charles IV. of France allowed only his nobles to take pheasants in nets. In this connection may be no- ticed the curious fact brought to light by Professor Newton, that Henry VIII. seems from his privy purse expenses to have had in his household in 1532 a French priest asa regular ‘fesaunt-breeder.’! —Bro- derip supplies an interesting note : ‘ We are told that the price of a pheasant was 4d. in the time of our first Edward’ (1299). In ‘The Forme of Cury,’ which is stated to have been compiled by the chief master-cook of King Richard II., there is a recipe ‘for to boile Fesant, Ptruch, Capons and Curlew,’ which carries us back to 1381. We read of the Fawkon and the Fesaunt both in the old ballad of the ‘ Battle of Otterbourne.’ At the ‘Intronazation of George Nevell,’ Archbishop of York, in the reign of our fourth Edward, we find among the goodly provision, ‘Fessauntes, 200.’ In the ‘Northumberland Household Book,’ begun in 1512, ‘Fesauntes’ are valued at twelvepence each. In the charges of Sir John Neville, of Chete, at Lammas As- sizes, in the twentieth year of King Henry VIIL., twelve pheasantsare charged at twenty shillings; and they seem Dictionary of Birds, p. 714. THE PHEASANT IN HISTORY 15 to have maintained their value, as among the expenses of the same Sir John Nevile, for, as he writes it, ‘the marriage of my son-in-law Roger Rockley and my daughter Elizabeth Nevile, the 14th of January, in the seventeenth year of the reigne of our soveraigne lord King Henry VIII.,’ is the following : ‘Item, in Pheasants 18, 24 shillings.’ We trace the birds in ‘A. C. Mery Talys,’ printed by John Rastell, where we read of ‘ Mayster Skelton, a poyet lauryat, that broughte the bysshop of Norwiche ii fesauntys.’ ! Pheasants seem to have been established in East Anglia atanearly period. The ‘Household Book’ of the L’Estranges of Hunstanton for 1532 includes an entry: ‘Itm, in reward the.vij day of Jun to Fulm’ston servante for bryngynge iij fesands.’