THEY DINED ON ELAND: THE STORY OF THE ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETIES.

1992 1st edition. Pp224. B/w plates, bibliography.

"One of the ways in which man has sought to modify the natural environment is by the introduction of alien animals and plants throughout the world. ...The idea [being] that these species could be acclimatised ...to live in a foreign environment as domestic stock". . . Beginning with the French Societe Zoologique d'Acclimatation, this book "traces the history of the Acclimatisation Society of the United Kingdom, founded in 1860, and its sister societies in Scotland, the Channel Islands, France, Russia, the USA, the Hawaiian Islands, Australia and New Zealand (many of them still active today)". As well as domestic species, the book deals in detail with the thousands of species which were turned out into the wild, with varying results, such as deer, hares and rabbits, sparrows, starlings, pheasants, blackbirds, trout, wels catfish and many others. A fascinating and important book.