BLACK GROUSE. 
265 
In Mr. J. H. Gurney's collection is an adult male from 
this district. 
In the "Hants Court Guide" Dr. Sclater says he has 
seen it in former days both in Wolmer Forest and where 
Aldershot Camp now is. 
Gilpin, writing in 1834,^ says : — " It scorns the enclosure 
and all the dainties of the stubble. The wild forest is his 
only delight, and there his pleasures lie more in its open 
than its woody scenes. This bird was formerly found in 
great abundance in New Forest ; but he is now much 
scarcer, though he has the honour which no other bird can 
boast, of being protected as royal game. To this day, 
when the chief justice in eyre grants his warrants to kill 
game in the forest, he always excepts the black cock, 
together with red and fallow deer." 
The story of White's hybrid between the black cock 
and pheasant is well-known. The following extract from 
Garrow's History of Lymington " (1825) is not so familiar : 
" A gentleman resident in the neighbourhood of Beaulieu 
has furnished the public with some interesting observations 
on the subject of these birds, through the medium of . . . 
the Annals of Sporting, in an article headed, ' A Race of 
Hybrid Birds in the New Forest' 
He therein proves, beyond contradiction, that the black 
cock will hold communion with the common domestic hen, 
and that he has at this time several specimens, the pro- 
duction of this intercommunity, on his farm." 
There is a cross between a black cock and a pheasant in 
the Hart collection, dated January i6th, 1884, and another 
was shot near Lyndhurst, in March, 1891, as reported by 
Mr. F. Bradburne in the " Field." 
* " Forest Scenery." 
