Plieasa|rt^ l':ifci^hr'L;!;i::i;;i:':!;;!:;;Hi;.:; New York State College of Agriculture At Cornell University Ithaca, N. Y. Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000058523 Fur and Feather Series edited by ALFRED E. T. WATSON NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF ^.GrjOULTURE AT CORNELL UITKEECITY Department of Poultry Husbandry ITHACA, N. Y. THE PHEASANT FUR AND FEATHER SERIES. Edited by ALFRED E. T. WATSON. THE PARTRIDGE. NATURAL HlHTORV-'By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson. SHOOTING—By A. J. Stuart- WoRTLEY. COOKERY—By G-e.OKGE Saintsbury. With Illustrations by A. Thorburn, A. J. Stuart-Wortley, and C. Whymper. Crown 8vo. 5J. [Ready. THE GROUSE. NATURAL HISTORV— By ihe Rev. H. A. Macpherson. SHOOTING — By A. J. Stuakt- WoRTLEY. COOKERY—By George Saintsbury. Witli Illustrations by A. J. Stijart-Wortley and A. Thorburn. Crown 8vo, 5^. [Ready. THE PHEASANT. natural HISTORY-By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson. SHOOT/NC—By A. J. Stuart- WoRTLEv. COOKERY—By Alexander Innes Shand. With Illustrations by A. Thorburn and A. J. Stuart- WoRTLEV. Crown 8vo. 5J. {Ready. THE HARE AND THE RABBIT. By the Hon. Gerald Lascelles, &c. [/« preparation. WILDFOWL. By the Hon. John Scott-Montagu, M.P. &c. [In preparation. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. London and New York. ^4:£^^(A•^jOL-r V^t^ * rronxtspiece GOOn BEAT SPOILED BY FOZ THE PHEASANT NATURAL H[STORY BY THE REV. H. A. MACPHERSON SHOOTING BY A. J. STUART-WORTLEY COOKERY BY ALEXANDER INNES SHAND 'WITH I"NTENT TO COMMIT A FELONT' WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. THORBURN LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1895 All rights reserved 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. 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 By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson CHAP. PAG I. The Pheasant in History II. The Pheasant of the Woodlands . 2 III. Freaks and Oddities s,. IV. Old-World Fowling . 6 V. Poaching in the Nineteenth-Century Style 8 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT By a. J. Stuart-WoRTLEY I. Prince and Peasant, Peer and Pheasant . 10 II. How TO Show Pheasants . 12 III. How TO Kill Them 15 viii CONTENTS CHAP. I'AGE IV. Wild-bred and Hand-reared . 176 V. Policy and Protection . 202 VI. Landscape and Larder 214 COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT . 227 By Alexander Innes Shand ILLUSTRATIONS By a. Thorburn Suggested and revised by A. J. Stuart-Wortley {^Reproduced by the Sivan Electric Engrcuving Company) Vignette : ' With intent to commit a Felony' .... Title-page Good Beat Spoiled by Fox . Frontispiece Under the Beeches . To face p. 42 A Frosty Night .... 90 Over the Tall Trees . 124 Dropped Dead far Back . 164 The Last of the Flush 174 Coming to Terms with the Runaway 182 A Race for Life . 198 Uninvited Guests .... 212 The Count ... 236 Various Diagrams in the text by A. J. Stuart Wortley 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. , 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 ' NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PHEASANT me that Martial was correctly informed when he wrote the well-known couplet, Argiva primiim 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.' Ptolemseus 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 Coeur-de-Lion. I venture to think that his lines deserve to be better known than they In prima specie carnem quod judice luxu Judical, ijDse sapor phasidos ales habet. Deliciosus honos mensse, jocunda palati Gloria, vix stomacho gratior hospes adest.^ t^ib. xiii. Epig. Ixxii. De Laudibus Diviiia: Sixfientice, 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, pubhshed 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 not, as a rule, thoroughbred. It would be more accurate to say that they are the result of a ' History of England, book i. p. 23. 2 Htmget^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 the pheasant to which we usually apply that term, I mean Phasianus cokhicus, as though it were confined to the forests and marshes which fringe the shallow and slimy waters of the slow-ilowing Phasis or Rion. My friend Mr. AV. 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 locaHties, notably those in the neigh- bourhood of the rivers Rion and Hura ; but it is generally to be found in suitable spots.