Again, from Old Reliable St Albans, a nye of pheasants, supported by the Knight of Duplin - who could quarrel with that? - and Egerton (ny v nye). Well, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News does, averring that it should be 'An eye.' So there we are, a small impasse, but an 'eye' is the Old English word for a brood. All authorities agree that 'nye' in any of its forms refers to only the young. So Lipton opts for the 'fanciful but general' term bouquet, found only in a 1927 compilation by Philip and Helen Gosse. Kudos to Lipton, the road less traveled and all that.
I thought they were a 'brace' of pheasants, but that could be regional or colloquial - doesn't matter, we don't have many of them left with the fence lines gone and the railroad beds flattened and planted. A ring-necked cock pheasant used to be a common sight, but they have thinned, with the less decorative and more aggressive wild turkeys coming into their own, apparently.
Our loss, unless you hunt turkeys. Which, by the way, are called a raft. To be explained at a later date.
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