WOLMER FOREST. GAME. 27 



and, therefore, rather suppose that they were parts of a 

 willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.* 



This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many 

 sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, 

 but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings, snipes, 

 wild-ducks, and, as I have discovered within these few years, 

 teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good seasons 

 on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make 

 excursions ; and in particular, in the dry summer of 1740 

 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such a 

 degree, that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed 

 twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day.f 



But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, 

 now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded 

 much before shooting flying became so common, and that 

 was the heath-cock, or black game. When I was a little 

 boy, I recollect one 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 gentle- 

 man present, who had often seen black game in the north 

 of England, assured me that it was a grey hen.^ 



* The remains of trees are found in most of the marshes in Great Britain ; 

 but the mosses in the north of England, and all those of Scotland, contain 

 trees often of immense size. These are generally oak, birch, different 

 willows, or alder, and the Scotch fir, pinus sylvestris. Being embedded to 

 considerable depths, they are sometimes in a perfect state, and completely 

 saturated with the soil in which they lie. In the Highlands, the Scotch fir 

 abounds, and retains so much resin as to be used for lights during winter, for 

 which purpose it is dug out, dried and split into narrow lengths. W.J. 



f Black game may now be found in the forest, and a few grouse. ED. 



J Black game have increased greatly in the southern counties 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 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 



