1004 The Zoologist — December, 1867. 



" Oct. 27. A hunting. Found no fox. Killed a hare. 



"Oct. 29. Riding to Worstou, brother Houghton and Coz. Henry 

 hawking; lost ther hawke. 



"Nov. 4. Downe to the water: Dick killed a mallard and a 

 duck at one shoote. Sherborne killed a water ousle, 2 pigeons and 

 a thrush. 



"Nov. 14. Bro. Sherborne went to th' Arrope and Skelfshaw 

 Fells with gunnes ; shot at a morecock, struck feathers off, and 

 missed.* 



"Nov. 24. To Downham by Harropwell. Had some sport at 

 moorgame with my piece, but killed not. 



" Dec. 23. To Rowe Moor, and killed ther 3 heath cockes." 



We find, therefore, that of the animals of chase mentioned in this 

 diary, three species are extinct as /era natura, in this locality, at the 

 present day ; namely, the red deer, the fallow deer or buck and the 

 bowson or badger. The otter still tenants the Rivers Hodder and 

 Ribble ; foxes are numerous ; rabbits are more so, I daresay, than in 

 Mr. Assheton's lime, and the same may be said for the hare. Of 

 birds the mallard and duck are still to be found, though one is not 

 likely to get many double shots as Dick did. Water ouzels are as 

 numerous, 1 should say, as when Sherborne went to the river bank 

 gunning two hundred and fifty years ago. Two days ago I was on 

 the banks of the Ribble, and saw them flitting merrily from stoue to 

 stone. Pigeons and thrushes still abound. 



It appears from this diary that the result of three days' grouse 

 shooting was three killed and one feathers struck off. Taking into 

 consideration the poorness of the fire-arras then in vogue, I fancy the 

 moor-game must have been less abundant than at present, judging 

 from the result of the bags. Grouse are now numerous on the Fells 

 that bound the old Forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland. 



In a survey of Bowland Forest, taken in the time of Cromwell's 

 usurpation, 12th October, 1652, twelve keepers are enumerated "for 

 the deere both red and fallow," and the "redd deere" are estimated 

 at twenty, worlh £20, and of "fallow deere" forty, valued at £20; 

 that is, there were twelve keepers for sixty deer ! the stock must have 

 been poached and destroyed during those troubled times. 



As I have before mentioned, the last remnant of those great herds 

 that in early times grazed on the banks of the Hodder and Ribble, 



* No shooting flyiug till many years after. 



