PHEASANTS COMING

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 255, 24 July 1937, Page 10

PHEASANTS COMING

New Blood For Game Farm Thirty-nine pheasants destined for the Wellington Acclimatisation Society’s game farm at I’araparaumu are included In the cargo of tiie motorliner Rangitane, which sailed from London on Thursday, and is due at Wellington on August 25. The pheasants are the gift of Mr. Eric Riddiford, and are being brought out by courtesy of the New Zealand Shipping Company. As it is the aim of the acclimatisation society to raise 3000 game birds for liberation before, the next shooting season, the importation of new blood will be of great value in 'maintaining and improving the strain. So large a liberation is bound to affect considerably the wild stock throughout the district, and for this reason it is hoped that the new birds will be available for breeding purposes this year. There is, howeyer, the possibility that the transition from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, enforcing two seasons in immediate succession, may cause them to miss this year’s mating. They are picked birds, from the best English breeders of sporting birds. The secretary of the acclimatisation society, Mr. E. J. C. Wiflin, was advised of the birds’ successful embarkation by cable yesterday. He said that as they would be given a clean bill of health on departure from England, it was unlikely that there would be any quarantine or other delay in landing the pheasants on arrival at Wellington.