ntroduce the French or Red-legged Partridge (_Caccabis
rufa_) into Ireland has met with a like result. According to Dr. Day, it
was tried during the summer of 1869 to naturalise the Sterlet
(_Acipenser ruthenus_) from Russian waters into the Duke of Sutherland's
River Fleet by importing artificially impregnated ova. From one hundred
and fifty to two hundred lively young sterlets are said to have been
turned out, but nevertheless the experiment met with no success. Several
fortunately abortive efforts were also made in British rivers to
establish _Silurus glanis_, a hideous monster of a fish, and quite
unpalatable.

The Natterjack Toad (_Bufo calamita_) has a very local distribution in
the British Islands. In Ireland it is found only along the coast of
Dingle Bay in County Kerry, where it is known among the peasantry as the
Black Frog. There is no doubt about its being indigenous there, and
though it has not spread beyond the very limited area of its habitat,
the Irish climate cannot be said to be unsuited to its existence. Yet it
seems to be extremely difficult to acclimatise it elsewhere, for though
no less than sixty specimens were turned out in Phoenix Park, Dublin,
about forty years ago, none of them were ever seen afterwards. They were
placed in the vicinity of one of the lakes, so as to give them ample
scope for breeding and developing the young, and in surroundings which
were considered eminently suitable at the time.

It has occasionally happened, too, that animals are introduced by
kindly-disposed persons with the view of adding a species to their
fauna, in complete ignorance of their previous existence in the country
where they wished to naturalise them. Thus we are told that in the year
1699 one of the Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, procured Frog's
spawn from England in order to add that amphibian to the Irish fauna. It
was placed in a ditch in the College Park, whence the species is
supposed to have gradually spread all over the island. This story is
quoted by many writers as the true history of the Frog in Ireland, and
is given as an example of the rapidity with which animals spread.
Unfortunately the would-be introducer seemed unaware that, according to
Stuart's _History of Armagh_, the first Frog which was ever seen in
Ireland made its appearance in a pasture field near Waterford about the
year 1630, that is to say, seventy years before its introduction in
Dublin.[5] But even Stuart was mistaken in