OF SELBORNE. 21 



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

 England, assured me that it was a gray 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 



1 This fine game-bird, although it became extinct in Gilbert 

 White's day, was reintroduced after the planting of the wood, by Sir 

 Charles Taylor, then ranger of the forest, and for some time throve 

 exceedingly well. The parent stock of the present race came from 

 Cumberland, and in 1872 an old man who had brought the birds to 

 Wolmer was still living in the neighbouring village of Liphook. A 

 good sportsman and naturalist, Capt. Feilden, late of the 4th Regt., 

 who visited Wolmer in 1872, expressly with the intention of noting the 

 changes which had taken place there since White's day, reported of the 

 black game as follows : " That the ground is well adapted for black 

 game is evident ; but I think the disproportion between the sexes 

 which now exists will, unless remedied, lead once more, and that ere long, 

 to the destruction of the species on Wolmer. There must be as many 

 as forty to fifty blackcocks on the ground, and I certainly have not 

 seen above six or seven grey hens. If this polygamous species is to 

 be kept up, the proportion of sexes ought to be reversed ; as it now is, 

 the hens are worried and driven off the ground by the importunities of 

 a crowd of suitors, and the result is that for several years past the 

 warders have not come across a nest or brood on the Government lands. 

 I am aware that in some parts of Scotland, where black game abound, 

 the old cocks are justly looked upon as detrimental to the general 

 interest, and are killed off as vermin at any season of the year. If 

 this were done at Wolmer, and a fair proportion produced between the 

 sexes, we might hope to retain this noble game-bird as a denizen of 

 Wolraer Forest for years to come." The species occurs sparingly upon 

 the moorlands and heaths of many of the southern counties of England, 

 and is reported as nesting occasionally in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, 

 Dorset, Hants, Sussex and Surrey. Its chief haunts, however, lie more 

 to the north, upon the lower slopes of heathy and mountainous tracts, 

 which are covered with a natural growth of willow, birch, and alder, and 

 intersected by morasses. It subsists on a variety of food according to 

 season, such as insects, wild berries, and the seeds of various rushes and 

 other plants, but chiefly on the young and tender shoots of the heath, and 

 in winter, when these are no longer procurable, upon the buds and tops of 

 the birch and alder, and the embryo shoots of the different firs. These 

 they can well obtain, since they readily perch on trees, and always 

 roost at night on a horizontal bough like pheasants. ED. 



