18 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
ee 
who had often seen grouse in the north of England, assured me 
that it was a greyhen.* 
Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the 
Fauna Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of 
beings is wanting, I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning 
of this century amounted to about five hundred head, and made a 
stately appearance. There is an old keeper, now alive, named 
Adams, whose great-grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation 
taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head 
keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than an 
hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often 
told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Ports- 
mouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal 
* The vignette at the head of Letter VI. represents a view of Wolmer Forest as it now 
appears, taken from the yard of Temple Farm-house. Wolmer Pond is seen upon the 
right. 
sThis letter with the next alludes to subjects of far more interest to the naturalist than 
would be at first supposed. At the time when White wrote, it may have been considered 
that a wild “tract,” seven miles by two-and-a-half in extent, consisting of moss and muir, 
heath and fern, would not be worthy of much remark. Fortunately our author viewed it 
differently, and it was, we have no doubt, one of his “charming places ;” he writes, “it 
has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and asa naturalist.” With 
how much interest will the present proprictor of Selborne, or any one who can follow the 
feeling of these letters, now visit Wolmer Forest, and compare its present state with the 
above description. Such facts as those recorded by White, are invaluable to either 
zoologist or botanist, and the reclamation there, with the great changes which have taken 
place incident to the increase of population and other causes,—the change almost from 
desolation to cultivation, must have materially affected the existence and distribution of 
the wild animals and plants. Ina series of years where attention has been given to the 
results of these unavoidable changes, we have seen some species extirpated and others 
assume their places. The influence of population on the existence and geographical 
distribution of animal and vegetable life, with all its attendant circumstances of commerce, 
and the necessity for increasing human food by cultivation, though comparatively unper- 
ceived, is not so very slow in its results; fifty years may almost entirely change the 
zoology and botany of a district, and within such limited bounds as Wolmer Forest, the 
extirpation of the black game would easily occur, though cultivation, particularly on the 
borders of a sub-alpine county, is rather favourable than the reverse for this game. 
Drainage makes a most important change on the wild vegetation : a large extent of new 
plantation in the growth of half a century will materially affect the character of a county, 
by rendering it a suitable abode for animals, birds, and insects before unknown to it, and 
so would the cutting down of extensive old woods destroy or drive away other species 
that delighted only in them. But population and cultivation bring other evils attendant 
upon themselves. They extirpate or reduce the numbers of the rapacious animals, and 
allow the increase of others, which naturally follow and accommodate themselves to the 
circumstances, finding a more abundant supply of food. Rabbits have followed cultiva- 
tion, and are often exceedingly injurious, their rapid increase rendering their extirpation 
no easy matter. Rooks accompany cultivation, are familiar birds, and accommodate 
themselves easily ; they are of immense utility in keeping under various entomological 
pests that annoy the farmer, but they have in some parts increased most rapidly, and 
finding in the produce of the land a sure and ample supply of food, they have resorted to 
that and do occasionally much damage, so much so that in some districts anti-crow 
associations have been formed for their destruction, and many thousands are annually 
killed. The indiscriminate destruction of rapacious animals and birds by game-keepers 
has led to the increase of other species, and of one in particular, the common wood- 
pigeon ; this bird in some localities has become exceedingly numerous, assembling in 
flocks of many hundreds, and in winter doing very great injury to the turnip crops; anti- 
pigeon associations have also been formed, and in Berwickshire no less than 8000 were 
destroyed in one year. 
