268 DELIBERATE INTRODUCTION OF NEW ANIMALS 



which multiplied of their own free will, could bear neither 

 the expense nor the trouble of rearing and tending Pheasants 

 in a bare land. 



The establishment of the Pheasant in our coverts has 

 led to an interesting secondary introduction or transportation 

 and establishment. Ants and their larvae are well known to 

 form a favourite food of the Pheasant, the larvae being the 

 main support of young birds. To meet this demand large 

 species of ants have been set free in coverts, where they 

 have sometimes become established, building their nests and 

 hatching theiryounginevermultiplying numbers increasing 

 at one and the same time the food of the Pheasant and the 

 variety of the local fauna. 



In recent years many importations of wonderfully beauti- 

 ful eastern varieties of the Pheasant have been made, the 

 best known being the Chinese or Ring-necked Pheasant 

 (Phasianus cokkuus torquatus), the "common" pheasant of 

 central or south China; the handsome Mongolian Pheasant 

 (P. c. mongolicus), from the mountains of eastern Asia; the 

 Japanese Pheasant (P. c. versicolor), distinguished by the 

 dark green of its under parts, and the gorgeous Reeve's 

 Pheasant (P. reevesii), from the highlands of northern and 

 western China. Several of these varieties and their crosses 

 may now be seen at large in one part or another of the 

 countryside. 



INTRODUCTION OF THE CAPERCAILLIE (Tetrao urogallus) 



If man has added the most beautiful of game birds to 

 our coverts, he also has placed in the woods the most 

 handsome of their modern inhabitants the " capercaillie," 

 "capercalye," "auercalye" or "horse of the woods," as our 

 old writers variously termed him. This fine bird (Fig. 50), 

 the large size and glossy black plumage of which would 

 make it remarkable in any association of bird life, was 

 well known to early historians of Scotland. Boece (Bellen- 

 den's translation), says of it in 1527, 



Mony uthir fowlis ar in Scotland, quhilkis ar sene in na uthir partis of 

 the warld, as capercailye, ane foule mair [in size] than ane ravin, quhilk 

 leiffis allanerlie [lives entirely] of barkis of treis. 



But the gradual disappearance of the pine woods, upon the 



