Some of our rich sporting men are trying to naturalize foreign game birds and animals in this country. Masseni quail and English pheasants have been tried; but our winters proved too severe for them. At Jobstown, N.J., Mr. Pierre Lorillard and other gentlemen claim they have successfully acclimated the English partridge and the French red-legged partridge. Mr. Lorillard has also brought east large flocks of prairie-chickens from the west. These ought to do well, for they were very common in New Jersey over 100 years ago. This fine bird is soon to be acclimated if possible in England and on the continent. Thousands of our quail are being sent abroad to see if they will not thrive in the old world.
Among those that are interested in introducing English game in America are Mr. Garrett Roach, pheasants and partridges on Long Island; Mr. Richard Muser, pheasant and partridges in New York state; Dr. Al. Watts, of Boston, Mr. Rutherford Stuyvesant, pheasants and partridges on his large preserve at Allamuchy, Warren county, N.J.; Mr. A.E. Godaffroy and Mr. E. Plock, hares, rabbits, pheasants and partridges, in Orange county, N.Y.; Mr. B.W. Pickard, English roe deer and partridges in the Adirondack region; Mr. H.R. Sterling, partridges and pheasants, in northern New Jersey, and the sporting club on Fisher's Island, Long Island sound, partridges and pheasants.
It is curious to note that as our country becomes settled, additional efforts are making to preserve and multiply game birds and animals. Sporting clubs are organized for the purpose of buying up shooting grounds, so as to check the depredations of the pot hunter. We have a great deal of land in this country, some swampy and the rest hilly and broken, that can be put to no better use than being turned into preserves for the protection of game.
April 8, 1885. Highland Weekly News 49(2): 4. From Demorest's Monthly.