3-034-695 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Months: October, 1871. '...October brings...many high-class sportsmen...to the parks and copses of their English demesnes, the rage for slaughter demanding an abundant supply of victims, which is found in the pheasant preserves...It is well known that the breeding and feeding of this handsome bird, as one of the favourite objects of rural diversion, an ornament of woodland scenery, and a palatable addition to dinner or luncheon, engages the most serious attention of some of our landed gentry...This Asiatic fowl has taken up its abode in every country of Europe, and is probably destined to follow the European colonists of America, Australia, and New Zealand, and to become as familiar there as it is here...The rapid and wholesale killing of hundreds of our fellow-creatures in the battue - for the birds and beasts, after all, must be confessed to be the fellow-creatures of mankind - is, perhaps, a diversion which good taste will some day forbid; but the pheasant will not cease to be seen beneath the thinned autumnal shade of the trees, picking at the beechnuts and acorns, or suddenly rising, when startled by our approach, and whirring across our path to gain the shelter of the neighbouring hedge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.