be open at bottom, and from thence run one dry ditch or
hedgerow after another for half a mile to the next covert ;
but a hen Pheasant seems “to trust to her brown colour to
escape detection, and squatting in any bit of long grass that
is near her, often surprises and startles f the young shooter,
not a little, by bouncing up with a rattling noise close at his
feet, and the poor frightened bird is frequently indebted to
the sensation thus created for a clear escape. The brown
earth-like colour of the plumage of thé females of several species
of Pheasants seems to be a bountiful provision, not only
for their individual safety, but in a degree for the préservation
of the whole race. Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings, has truly
observed that, “ while we admire the dazzling plumage of a
male bird, we may wonder why the female appears so-infinitè*
ly below him in the scale of beauty. Is it because she is to
be cohsidered as more degraded, or as an inferior being ?
When we see the male expanding his rich and varied plumage
in the sunbeams, let us not forget that on the female dèvolves
all the offices of love and affection. She hatches, feeds, and
protects, at the risk of her life, her helpless young ones ; and
what we may consider as lowering her in the.:scale of creation,
is* on the contrary, an act of the greatest kindness and consideration.
Her want of beauty is her chief protection, and
her very humility saves her from a thousand perils.” It-is on
this account that some gamekeepers dislike having white or
pied Pheasants on their ground. Any prowling boy can find
a hen Pheasant on her nest, if she happens to have any white
feathers in her plumage.
Among the various communications for which I am in-
debted to the kindness of the Rev. Richard Lubbock of Norfolk,
are some extracts from the Household Book and-Privy
Purse accounts of the Lestranges of Hunstanton, from A.D.
1519 to 1578, communicated to the Society1 of Antiquaries
by D. Gurney, Esq. in 1884. Such of these extracts .as
relate to birds, more particularly those in use for the table, I
shall occasionally quote : some of them will be found curious,
either for the'mode by which the birds were taken, or the
equivalent given for them. The first in reference to our present
subject is,—“ Item, to Mr. Asheley’s servant for bryng-
yng of a Fesant Cocke and four Woodcocks on the 18th day
of October, in reward, four-pehce.” ■ The second,— “ Item, a
F.esant kylled with the Goshawke.” : The third,—“ a notice,
two Fesants and two Partridges killed with the Hawks.” I
may here remark that :the ordinary weight of a Pheasant is
about twd pounds and'a. half; but under the influence of
abundance ~of food," in quiet preserves, where’ they are not
disturbed perhaps more than'oHieeim a season, and that for a
Christmas'battue, the'size attained is scarcely credible, Mr.
.Fisher, a poulterer in Duke-Street, ;St. James’s, in January
1889, exhibited a cock' Pheasant which weighed, four pounds
and one quarter. Messrs; Sheppard and Whitear, in their
Catalogue of'Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, published in the
fifteenth volume-of the': Transactions of the Linnean Society,
mentioivTfhabat Campsey Ash, where the Pheasants are well
led: with potatoes^ buckwheat, and barief, 'a cock Pheasant
ha's beerf billed which weighed .four pounds and a half; and
some winters'since, m y friend, Mr. Louis Jaquier, then of the
Clarendon, produced a brace of cock Pheasants which weighed
together rabove nine pounds. The lighter bird of the two
just turned the scale against- four pounds and a half ; the
other . bird took the scale down at’ oiice. The weights were
^accurately .ascertained in the ’ presence* -ofseveral friends to
decide: a wager, of which I was myself the loser.
? One peculiarity of the Pheasant 'must not;be passed over*
which' is, its. inclination 'to breed with “other gallinaceous
birds, not of its own species. This 'tendency, exists also in
a remarkable degree among the different species of Grouse, as
jrill be hereafter noticed, with examples, Edwards long ago