28 WOLMER FOREST RED DEER. 



coming now and then to my father's table. The 

 last pack remembered was killed about thirty-five 

 years ago ; and within these ten years one solitary 

 grey hen was sprung by some beagles, in beating for 

 a hare. The sportsman cried out, " A hen pheasant!" 

 but a gentleman present, who had often seen black 

 game in the north of England, assured me that it 

 was a grey hen.* 



Nor does the loss of our black game prove the 

 only gap in the Fauna Selborniensis, or " Natural 

 History of Selborne ;" 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 ap- 

 pearance. 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 Fo- 

 rest in succession, for more than an hundred years. 

 This person assures me, that his father has often told 



* Black game have increased greatly in the southern coun- 

 ties of Scotland and north of England within the last few 

 years. It is a pretty general opinion, though an erroneous 

 one, that they drive away the red grouse ; the two species 

 require very different kinds of cover, and will never interfere. 

 It is to be regretted that some of our extensive and wealthy 

 northern proprietors do not attempt the introduction of the 

 wood grouse ; extensive pine or birch forests, with quiet, 

 would be all the requisites ; and the birds themselves, or their 

 young, could be very easily obtained, and at a trifling expense. 

 In a late number of Mr. J. Wilson's Zoological Illustrations, 

 there is an excellent plate of the tetrao urophasianus of North 

 America, a very handsome species, which, with some others 

 lately discovered by Mr. Douglas, might be introduced into 

 this country, and form a fine addition to our feathered game. 

 The little American partridge, the ortyx borealis of naturalists, 

 has been introduced, and is now plentiful, in some counties 

 in England. W. J. 



