Synopses & Reviews
BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR BY F. G. AFLALO - NOTE These sketches of birds, each appropriate to one month of the twelve, originally appeared in The Outlook, to the Editor and Proprietors of which review I am indebted for permission to reprint them in book form. EASTER, 1914. F. G. A. JANUARY THE PHEASANT THE PHEASANT AS birds are to be considered throughout these pages from any standpoint but that of sport, much that is of interest in connection with a bird essentially the sportsmans must necessarily be omitted. At the same time, although this gorgeous creature, the chief attraction of social gather- ings throughout the winter months, appeals chiefly to the men who shoot and eat it, it is not uninteresting to the naturalist with opportunities for studying its habits under conditions more favourable than those en- countered when in pursuit of it with a gun. In the first place, with the probable ex- ception of the swan, of which something is said on a later page, the pheasant stands alone among the birds of our woodlands in its personal interest for the historian. It is not, in fact, a British bird, save by accli- matisation, at all, and is generally regarded as a legacy of the Romans. The time and manner of its introduction into Britain are, it is true, veiled in obscurity. Whatwe know, 11