162 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and 604 ft. at Alderley Edge. Except in the neighbourhood of 

 the few manufacturing towns, the Cheshire plain now presents a 

 peaceful pastoral aspect, extensive grazing and dairy tracts, which 

 are among the most important in England, being interspersed 

 with numerous game-coverts and large well-timbered parks ; the 

 heaths and peat-mosses have been almost entirely reclaimed, 

 and the Eoyal Forest of Delamere, between Northwich and 

 Chester, alone remains of the extensive natural woodlands which 

 once covered the greater part of its surface. The whole country 

 is well watered by the Bollin, Dane, Weaver, and Gowy, which 

 flow into the Mersey, and is studded with numerous small lakes 

 or meres, of which Eostherne, Tatton, Doddington, Budworth, 

 and Combermere may be cited as examples ; whilst nearly every 

 field contains one or more marl-pits, which formerly constituted 

 the sole source of the manure-supply for the permanent pastures. 

 In the north-western part of the county, between the estuaries of 

 the Dee and Mersey, is a hammer-headed peninsula, called 

 Wirral, whose natural features do not differ materially from those 

 of the central plain. 



In the east and north-east the character of the country is 

 entirely different. The scenery in many places is very wild and 

 romantic, and the hills of millstone grit, rising to 1833 ft. at 

 Shining Tor, near Macclesfield, and to 1908 ft. at the head of 

 Heyden Brook in Longdendale, with their long lines of terraced 

 or steeply -scarped edges and broad stretches of breezy grouse- 

 moor, form a striking contrast to the fertile and well-wooded 

 plain of the Trias. 



Of the literature of our subject there is but little to be said. 

 The earliest work which contains more than a casual reference 

 to any of the Mammalia is * A Discription Historicall and Geo- 

 graphicall of the Countie Palatine of Chester,' published at 

 Chester in 1656. In speaking of Delamere and Maxfield Forests 

 the author, Daniel King, says: — "Besides the great store of 

 Deer both Bed and Fallow, in the two Forests before named ; 

 there is also great plenty of Hares: In hunting whereof the 

 gentlemen do pass much of their time, especially in Winter ; also 

 great store of Conies, both black and gray ; namely in the places 

 where it is Sandy ground ; neither doth it lack Foxes, Foulmards, 

 Otters, Basons* and such like." Dr. Charles Leigh's * Natural 



■■'- Bason, Bawson, and Boreson, i, e., the Badger. 



