182 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



It is very possible that birds might have strayed over the 

 Sussex border from Wohner Forest^ where their numbers 

 have been replenished since the time of Gilbert White by Sir 

 Charles Taylor, when he was the Hanger of the forest *. More 

 likely still, from Leith Hill in Surrey, where, about 1832, 1 

 saw as many as twenty old cocks in a pack, and have often 

 put them up in smaller numbers. In Ashdown Forest, they 

 seem to have lingered somewhat later, as, from inquiries 

 made in that district, I learn that two or three pairs were 

 seen up to about 1863 near Buddies well and Pippinford, 

 almost the highest part of that range. In that same year, 

 1862, Mr. Turner, then Rector of Maresfield, wrote as 

 follows : — " Ashdown Forest was well stocked with Black 

 Game. So numerous were these birds at the commencement 

 of the present century, that it was hardly possible to walk or 

 ride in any direction without disturbing some of them. At 

 that time the forest was thickly covered with heath, but this 

 has been so generally cleared that the Black Game, being de- 

 prived of the food and shelter they so much delight in, have 

 gradually disappeared '' {vide ' Sussex Archaeological Col- 

 lections,^ vol. xiv. p. 62). Markwick merely states that he 

 has seen this species in St. Leonards Forest, near Horsham. 

 Mr. Knox, in O. R. p. 164, mentions having seen a few near 

 Crawley, but that they were fast decreasing in numbers. 



In the ' Zoologist,' p. 3330, Mr. Ellman records that a 

 Grey Hen was caught in a wire by one of the '' slippery gentle- 

 men rovers of the night," and the cock bird seen, about five 

 miles from Lewes, October 30th, 1851. 



The Black Grouse feeds on corn, heath, whortleberries, and 

 blackberries, and, in severe weather, on buds of the willow 

 and birch, and the tips of the fir. It makes a slight nest 



* There is no reason to suppose that they were extinct in the time of 

 Gilbert White. 



