82 
IN SHERWOOD FOREST. 
Apr., 1889. 
IN SHERWOOD FOREST. 
BY OLIVER V. APLIN, 
MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION. 
(Concluded from page 58.) 
A far more interesting game-bird is still found in the 
district. Some three or four miles south-east of Mansfield 
lies a wide tract of undulating ground, partly heather-clad, 
partly gorse and bracken-covered, with extensive young 
plantations of larch, spruce, and fir ; and, here and there, 
topping the higher slopes, patches of oak-scrub, spruce, 
Scotch fir, &c.; this is Mansfield Forest. The air is fresh and 
strong, tainted sometimes in spring by the pleasant scent of 
a newly-burnt patch of heather. Poor and sandy as the soil 
is in most places, it supports a few sheep, the forest mutton 
having a well-deserved local reputation, and plenty of rabbits. 
Here the old race of forest Blackgame still lingers, not yet 
re-invigorated by any infusion of fresh blood, though it is 
feared that this expedient must be resorted to if the breed is 
to be kept up. It is a fortunate individual indeed who chances 
to see half-a-dozen old Blackcocks feeding out on the sandv 
fields at the edge of the forest, as has more than once 
happened to my host in that neighbourhood. I have myself 
on several occasions been lucky enough to come across Grey¬ 
hens, springing one once not five yards from my feet; and, on 
a fine evening in May, a single Blackcock was pointed out to 
me at the edge of a field of young barley, the sun glinting on 
his shining breast. 
The Whinchat is common on the banks and slopes, but 
the Stonechat is strangely scarce, while the white upper tail- 
coverts of the Wheatear occasionally catch the eye as the 
birds flit on in front. Ascending a purple slope of heather 
one August day, I saw a Ring Ouzel perched on a sprig of 
whin, which, on our near approach, flew on and dropped in 
the heather. Although scarce here, this wild thrush, most at 
home on the mountain and the fell, has been known to breed 
about that spot, and the red berries of the rowan trees are 
so tempting as to overcome his shyness, and draw him down 
to the wood edges and even into ornamental grounds. 
Scattered over the forest, in the hollows, are some lone 
ponds, bordered with rushes and merging in places into boggy 
