
Introductions 
The original range of the red-legged partridges has been 
considerably extended by successful introductions. Numbers of 
Alectoris rufa rufa were trapped in France and sent alive to 
King Charles II of England as early as 1673. This attempt failed, 
as did many subsequent ones. It was not until 1770 that the species 
was actually established in Suffolk County utilizing eggs brought 
over from France. Once naturalized it spread rapidly (2). 
The same subspecies was also successfully liberated in the 
Balearic Islands, and Peters (1) believes that instances of its 
occurrence in northern France, Holland, Belgium, and western Germany 
may also be due to introduction. 
The redlegs from northern Spain, Alectoris rufa hispanica, 
have been successfully transplanted into Madeira. Attempts to in- 
troduce these partridges from southern Spain into North Africa were 
probably made by the Moors but without success. There is some 
evidence to indicate that the birds resident in the Azores and on 
Gran Canaria Island, although now considered a separate subspecies, 
were originally brought there from Spain or Portugal. 
John C. Phillips (3) in 1928 gave the following excellent 
summary of the early attempts to introduce the redleg into the New 
World: 
To Lafayette belongs the honor of sending to America 
the first specimen of a "French partridge", which was re- 
ceived by George Washington at Mount Vernon in November 1786. 
W. 0. Blaisdell imported a few pairs into Illinois in 
1896, but most of these died. He raised some young from 
the only pair that he had left and turned them out near 
Macomb. Between 1901 and 1911 only 54 of these birds were 
imported, according to the records of the Bureau of 
Biological Survey, so that it is doubtful whether there was 
any serious attempt to establish them. 
It was sometime after the conclusion of the Second World War 
that the attention of sportsmen returned to these birds. Then 
Americans who had thrilled to the flight of the redlegs driven over 
the shooting butts in Spain began to make inquiries of the Fish and 
Wildlife Service about these partridges. In 1952 George Cranmer of 
Denver and Madrid made a gift of 119 Spanish redlegs to the Colorado 
Fish and Game Commission. Twenty-one of the poorer ones were kept 
on the State game farm for breeding experiments. The rest were 
liberated in Carizzo Canyon in southeastern Colorado. 
‘The same year my preliminary work indicated this species 
to be worth careful investigation. Thus began the study of which 
the presént report is one result. 
