24 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 greyhen 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. 



Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only 

 gap in the Fauna Selborniensis ; for another beautiful hnk 

 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 



