BLACK-GAME SHOOTING 
above, hounds in full cry crossed through the middle of the drive that 
was in progress. In the sixties of last century, before coal pits, colliery 
towns, high roads, and summer trippers came to invade its wild solitudes, 
Cannock Chase was a notable resort of game and wildfowl in general, 
and of black-game in particular. Lord Berkeley Paget informs me that he 
can remember it as an open moorland of over 20,000 acres, with only 
two small woods on it, and two roads across it, one of which was seldom 
used. From the pages of his game book Lord Berkeley Paget sends me 
some interesting records of these times long past. In one day’s driving 
252 black-game were killed ; on another day 189 ; while on one occasion 
my informant killed 126 black-game to his own gun in the day. 
Such records as these may be given without fear of rousing a spirit of 
emulation, for they will never again be equalled, until the secret of rearing 
black-game like pheasants be mastered by some game preserver, clever 
beyond his fellows. 
AYMER MAXWELL. 
43 
