OF SELBORNE. 2'9 



game. When I was a little boy I recol- 

 lect one coming now and then to my 

 father's table. The last pack remem- 

 bered was killed about thirty-five years 

 ago : and within these ten years one so- 

 litary grei/ hen was sprung by some 

 beao:les in beatino- 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 Selbov' 

 7iiensis ; for another beautiful link in the 

 chain of beings is wanting, 1 mean the 

 red deer, which toward the beginning of 

 this century amounted to about five hun- 

 dred head, and made a stately appearance. 

 There is an old keeper, now alive, named 

 Adams, whose great grandfather (men- 

 tioned in a perambulation taken in 1035^) 

 grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the 

 head keepership of Wolmer forest in suc- 

 cession for more than an hundred years. 

 This person assures me, that his father 



