16 
NATTJEAL HISTORY OF SELBOTINE 
'Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna 
Selborniensis ; 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 grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grand- 
father, father and self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest 
in succession for more than an hundred years. This person assures me, 
that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was 
journeying on the Portsmouth road; did not think the forest of Wolmer 
beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great road at 
Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing herself on a bank smoothed for 
that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer Pond, and 
still called Queen's Bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction 
the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before 
her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight this, worthy 
the attention of the greatest sovereign ! But he farther adds that, by 
means of the Waltham blacks or, to use his own expression, as soon as 
me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist." "With how 
much interest will the present proprietor of Selborne, or any one who can follow 
the feeling of these letters, now visit Wolmer Forest, and compare its present 
state with the above description. Such facts as those recorded by White, are 
invaluable to either zoologist or botanist, and the reclamation there, with the great 
changes which have taken place incident to the increase of population and other 
causes, — the change almost from desolation to cultivation, must have materially 
affected the existence and distribution of the wild animals and plants. In a 
series of years where attention has been given to the results of these unavoidable 
changes, we have seen some species extirpated and others assume their places. 
The influence of population on the existence and geographical distribution of 
animal and vegetable life, with all its attendant circumstances of commerce, and 
the necessity for increasing human food by cultivation, though comparatively 
unperceived, is not so very slow in its results ; fifty years may almost entirely 
change the zoology and botany of a district, and within such limited bounds as 
Wolmer Forest, the extirpation of the black game would easily occur, though 
cultivation, particularly on the borders of a sub-alpine county, is rather favourable 
than the reverse for this game. Drainage makes a most important change on 
the wild vegetation : a large extent of new plantation in the growth of half a 
century will materially affect the character of a county, by rendering it a suitable 
abode for animals, birds, and insects before unknown to it, and so would the 
cutting down of extensive old woods destroy or drive away other species that 
delighted only in them. But population and cultivation bring other evils 
attendant upon themselves. They extirpate or reduce the numbers of the 
rapacious animals, and allow the increase of others, which naturally follow and 
accommodate themselves to the circumstances, finding a more abundant supply 
of food. Rabbits have followed cultivation, and are often exceedingly injurious, 
their rapid increase rendering their extirpation no easy matter. Rooks accom- 
pany cultivation, are familiar birds, and accommodate themselves easily ; they 
are of immense utility in keeping under various entom'ological pests that annoy 
the farmer, but they have in some parts increased most rapidly, and finding 
in the produce of the land a sure and ample supply of food, they have resorted . 
to that and do occasionally much damage, so much so that in some districts 
anti-crow associations have been formed for their destruction, and many 
thousands are annually killed. The indiscriminate destruction of rapacious 
animals and birds by game-keepers has led to the increase of other species, 
and of one in particular, the common wood-pigeon ; this bird in some localities 
has become exceedingly numerous, assembling in flocks of many hundreds, and • 
in winter doing very great injury to the turnip crops ; anti-pigeon associations 
have also been formed^ and in Berwickshire no less than 8000 were destroyed in 
one year. 
