PARTRIDGES FROM INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19349, 9 June 1926, Page 14

PARTRIDGES FROM INDIA.

ARRIVAL IN CHRISTCHURCH.

BIRDS IN GOOD CONDITION

'BY TEIEGRAFK. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH. Tuesday.

Thirty-six chukor partridges from India have been imported bv Mr. R. 0. Todhunter, of Mount Somers. The birds, which were sent from Calcutta, have arrived in Christchurch in good condition. This Dominion has no native partridges and ail efforts to establish partridges from other countries have failed. The North Canterbury Acclimatisation _ Society has made several efforts during the past 59 years to introduce the common European partridge. The society brought out 10 birds in 1867. In the following year there arrived a single bird, the only survivor of a consignment of 45, which had been shipped from London. Thirty-two brace were imported in 1871, and m 1880 240 birds were shipped from London, but only 19 arrived in Christchurch. Furtlser efforts to introduce the common partridge were made in 1875 and 1879. Twenty years later 20 Hungarian partridges were brought to New Zealand to the order of the North Canterbury Society and other societies.

In other parts of the Dominion efforts have been made to introduce the common partridge, the French or red-legged partridge, and . the Barbary and Hungarian partridges, _ The birds'were liberated in many districts. They seemed to thrive in ;Some areas for a time, but thev appear to have died out "