NATURAL HISTORY 25 



be borne in mind that the initial attempts 

 to introduce a new species have generally 

 ended in failure, and that the eventual 

 success has usually been gained by per- 

 sistence in face of repeated disappoint- 

 ments. 



It is only a hundred years since Yarrell, 

 the best authority on birds of his day, 

 wrote bewailing the approaching ex- 

 tinction of the Chinese pheasant (P. 

 torquatus), then a recent and much- 

 admired introduction ; yet, after all, the 

 new-comer proved more than capable of 

 holding his own, ousting the old Indian 

 pheasant wherever they met, till now not 

 one in ten thousand of our pheasants but 

 bears marked trace of ring-necked blood. 



The Duchess of Bedford has kindly 

 furnished me with the following notes 

 on the various foreign partridges which 

 have been turned out experimentally in 

 the park at Woburn Abbey : " We 

 once turned out some Black partridges 

 (Francolinus vulgaris a native of Pales- 

 tine and Asia Minor), but they disappeared. 



