PHEASANT
.—The pheasant is not only the most beautiful bird in plumage of any bred in this kingdom, but the first in estimation; not more for the sport it affords in the field, than its delicious attraction for the table. They are about one fourth less in size than common poultry, lay nearly the same number of eggs, and bring up their young in the same manner. They principally frequent the WOODS and hedge-rows, are seldom found in the fields, and then but very rarely far from covert: when upon WING, they are so exceedingly slow in flight, that he must be an exceeding bad marksman who does not HIT his BIRD. The pheasant is included in every successive Act for the preservation of the game; and although they are less liable than HARES and PARTRIDGES to the destructive depredations of the POACHERS, they suffer considerably by FOXES, MARTERNS, POLE-CATS, and other vermin.
Persons of every description, qualified and unqualified, stand exactly in the same state with respect to PHEASANTS as with PARTRIDGES, so lately described under that head, but with this difference in the legal season for taking or killing: it is enacted by two distinct legislative Acts of the present reign, That any person who shall, under any pretence whatever, take, kill, destroy, carry, fell, buy, or have in his possession, any PHEASANT, between the first day of February and the first day of October, (unless such pheasant shall have been taken in the proper season, and kept in a mew or breeding-place,) shall forfeit FIVE POUNDS for every PHEASANT so taken, to be paid to the informer, with full costs of suit.