OF SELBOENE 13 



have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler colour, and 

 softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir : but, upon a nice 

 examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous 

 in them ; 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. 



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 ago ; and within 

 these ten years one solitary grey hen was sprung by some 

 beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsmen cried out, "A hen 

 pheasant " ; but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse 

 in the north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen. 1 



Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the 

 Fauna Selbornieims ; for another beautiful link in the chain of 

 beings is wanting, I mean the red deer, which toward the be- 

 ginning of this century amounted to about five hundred head, 



' surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy-park* where there were 



' drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether 



' those drains were full of water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground : 



' a plain proof this, that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from 



' ascending from greater depths below them : for the snow lay where the drain had 



1 more than four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, 



' tiles, and the tops of walls." See Hales 's Hsemastatics : p. 360. Quere : might 



not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of 



old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and in Roman stations and camps 



lead to the finding of pavements, baths and graves, and other hidden relics of 



curious antiquity? 



* [In orig. Bushy is misprinted Busby.} 



1 [ Tetrao tetrix. L. Bell (1877) notes that this grouse is still occasionally met with 

 at Wolmer, and this not as the result of any recent importation from other localities, 

 but as a voluntary visitant. From Hampshire westwards to Exmoor it may still 

 be found in suitable places.] 



