20 FOREST OF WOLMER BLACK GAME. 



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 1 . 



Nor does the loss of our black game prove the 

 only gap in the Fauna Selborniensis ; 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 appearance. There is 

 an old keeper, now' alive, named Adams, whose 

 great-grandfather, (mentioned in a perambulation 

 taken in 1635,) grandfather, father, and self, en- 

 joyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest in 

 succession for more than an hundred years. This 

 person assures me, that his father has often told 



1 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 erro- 

 neous 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 intro- 

 duction of the wood grouse ; extensive pine or birch forests, 

 with quiet, would be all the requisites ; and the birds them- 

 selves, or their young, could be easily obtained, and at a 

 trifling expense. In a late number of Mr. J. Wilson's Zoo- 

 logical Illustrations, there is an excellent plate of the tetrao 

 urophasianus of North America, a very handsome species, 

 which, with some others lately discovered by Dr. Douglas, 

 might be introduced into this country, and form a fine 

 addition to our feathered game. The little American par- 

 tridge, the ortyx borealis of naturalists, has been intro- 

 duced, and is now plentiful, in some counties in England. 

 W. J. 



