328 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



later the species was still uncommon in the Solway plain. A 

 local paper records in 1827, that 'Last week the Hon. Robert 

 Leeson of Crosby Lodge, near this city, bagged a brace of fine 

 black game, which are very rare in the neighbourhood.' x A 

 brood of black game is sometimes reared on one of the mosses 

 near Drumburgh,but, owing to indiscriminate shooting, the species 

 has never become really established there. The only informa- 

 tion I possess relative to black game in the west of Cumberland 

 is derived from Mr. H. Patricius Senhouse, who tells me that 

 there is a sprinkling of black game in the neighbourhood of 

 Cockermouth. The Westmorland Gazette of September 13, 

 1845, alludes to Sir George Musgrave killing a few brace of 

 black game at Barron wood. The specimens now preserved at 

 Edenhall came from Barron wood, and Mr. R. Raine tells us 

 that at the present time there are two or three broods of black 

 game on the Barron wood and Lazonby fells. 2 When we come 

 to the Westmorland border we find a few black game breeding 

 in several localities, on Whinfell for example. The species was 

 ' abundant at Julian Bower ' when Mr. Hindson wrote his 

 local notes. The question whether black game are indigenous 

 to a district, or have been introduced by human agency, is often 

 difficult to settle. It is certain that black game have bred in 

 the country round Appleby since the ' forties.' The Westmor- 

 land Gazette of September 13, 1845, records that the Hon. 

 Colonel Lowther and his son had been out among the black 

 game on the Manor of Sleagill; they bagged six brace, but 

 found the birds very wild. The Rev. A. J. Heelis kindly 

 enumerates the following places as those in which he has shot 

 black game near Appleby : ' In the " Ellen," as they call them, 

 which are rough woodlands of no great extent, immediately 

 behind Dufton Pike ; on glebe land at Kirkby Thore and in 

 the neighbouring plantations belonging to Mr. Crackenthorpe 

 of Newbiggin. I have some impression of having heard father 

 say that black game were introduced by Mr. Barham, a former 

 rector of Kirkby Thore. I know my grandfather once shot a 



1 Carlisle Patriot, Dec. 7, 1827. 



2 Some black game exists at Greystoke, Cumberland, and also on 

 Barton Fell, Westmorland. 



