162 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



and wild-fowl shooting ; but although a day's work 

 in even the best preserves of Sussex would not 

 produce such a list of killed and wounded as 

 in some of the countries to which I have referred, 

 or require such self-denial, hard fagging and ex- 

 posure to cold and rain, as in others, yet from 

 the varied nature of the sport and scenery it 

 frequently affords a combination of then* greatest 

 charms, in as high a degree too as ought to sa- 

 tisfy the aspirations of any keen and reasonable 

 sportsman. 



The battue, however, is almost unknown, for 

 although the estates of some of the large landed 

 proprietors especially in West Sussex are well 

 stocked with game, yet generally speaking, the 

 broken and irregular character of the country, 

 which imparts to it so many charms, forbids at the 

 same time the concentration of such a mass of vic- 

 tims in one spot as is necessary to gratify that 

 morbid love of slaughter which is supposed to 

 be the chief characteristic of the modern dandy 

 gunner. 



I will now proceed to give you some account of 

 our feathered game and sport. In certain parts of 

 the forest range the black cock (Tetrao tetrix) is 

 still to be met with. I have seen a few in the 

 neighbourhood of Crawley, but I am sorry to say 

 that the numbers of this, the only indigenous 



