The Natural History of Se I borne 27 



2>lackcock 



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. 



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, black game, or grouse. 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 



though a small part of it has lately been planted with Scotch firs. Legends 

 of trees having once existed on bare tracts have often grown up through a 

 misapprehension of the meaning of the word forest. Deer-forests cannot, 

 of course, be thickly wooded : the word is used in this case in its original 

 and proper meaning. ED. 



