OF SELBOKNE, 
21 
present^ who liad often seen black game in the north of 
England, assured me that it was a gray hen/ 
Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap 
in the Fauna Selbomiensis ; for another beautiful link 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 
^ This fine game-bird, although it became extinct in Gilbert 
White's day, was reintroduced after the planting of the wood, by Sir 
Charles Taylor, then ranger of the forest, and for some time throve 
exceedingly well. The parent stock of the present race came from 
Cumberland, and in 1872 an old man who had brought the birds to 
Wolmer was still living in the neighbouring village of Liphook. A 
good sportsman and naturalist, Capt. FeUden, late of the 4th Regt,, 
who visited Wolmer in 1872, expressly with the intention of noting the 
changes which had taken place there since White s day, reported of the 
black game as follows : " That the ground is weU adapted for black 
game is evident ; but I think the disproportion between the sexes 
which now exists will, unless remedied, lead once more, and that ere long, 
to the destruction of the species on Wolmer. There must be as many 
as forty to fifty blackcocks on the ground, and I certainly have not 
seen above six or seven grey hens. If this polygamous species is to 
be kept up, the proportion of sexes ought to be reversed ; as it now is, 
the hens are worried and driven off the ground by the importunities of 
a crowd of suitors, and the result is that for several years past the 
warders have not come across a nest or brood on the Government lands. 
I am aware that in some parts of Scotland, where black game abound, 
the old cocks are justly looked upon as detrimental to the general 
interest, and are killed off as vermin at any season of the year. If 
this were done at Wolmer, and a fair proportion produced between the 
sexes, we might hope to retain this noble game-bird as a denizen of 
Wolmer Forest for years to come." The species occurs sparingly upon 
the moorlands and heaths of many of the southern counties of England, 
and is reported as nesting occasionally in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, 
Dorset, Hants, Sussex and Surrey. Its chief haunts, however, lie more 
to the north, upon the lower slopes of heathy and mountainous tracts, 
which are covered with a natural growth of wiUow, birch, and alder, and 
intersected by morasses. It subsists on a variety of food according to 
season, such as insects, wild berries, and the seeds of various rushes and 
other plants, but chiefly on the young and tender shoots of the heath, and 
in winter, when these are no longer procurable, upon the buds and tops of 
the birch and alder, and the embryo shoots of the different firs. These 
they can well obtain, since they readily perch on trees, and always 
roost at night on a horizontal bough like pheasants. — Ed. 
