No other bird has become quite so synonymous with the British and American countryside as a cock pheasant and yet, this state bird of South Dakota, is an immigrant to both. Phasianus colchicus has come a long way from the marshy, rush-covered banks of the sluggish River Phasis, in what is today the country of Georgia (in the former Soviet Union). The species known as the Old English black-necked pheasant was, according to Greek legend, brought back to Greece by Jason and the Argonauts, and received with as much rapture and amazement as the Golden Fleece itself. Mythology aside, the historian Aeschylus left records of these wondrous creatures adorning the stockyards of ancient Greece, a culture that was subsequently acquired by the Romans. Roman chefs loved anything exotic and pheasants were soon appearing at patrician banquets, dressed for the table in all their plumage. Philladius wrote an account of the elaborate feeding process involved in fattening pheasants. Chicks were fed for the first two weeks on boiled grain sprinkled with wine; thereafter, on a more robust diet of locusts and ants’ eggs mixed with flour and olive oil, lovingly rolled into bite-sized balls.
