This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the summer; such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make excursions: and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such

a degree, that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day.

But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became so common, and that was the heath-cock, or black game. When I was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father's table. The last pack remembered, was killed about thirty-five years ago; and within these ten years one solitary gray was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. sportsman cried out, "A hen pheasant;" but a gentleman

hen

The

present, who had 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 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

1 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. Feilden, 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 well 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 willow, 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.

But

grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a 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! he farther adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland. It is now more than thirty years ago that his highness sent down a huntsman, and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by the staghounds; ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and to convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary diversion; but, in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the yeomenprickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to any thing in Mr. Astley's riding-school. The exertions made by the horse and deer much exceeded all my expectations; though the former greatly excelled the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated from his companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for twenty minutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued.

LETTER VII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

HOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution, and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, all this country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities, that government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the black act,1 which now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged to restock Waltham-chase, refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that "It had done mischief enough already."

Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet: it was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their youth; such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnipfield by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner :-Some fellows

1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22.

2 This chase remains unstocked to this day: the Bishop was Dr. Hoadley.-G. W.

suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went with a lurcher to surprise it, when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two.

Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places; but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them all.

Such forests and wastes, when the all urements to irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing, with fuel for the burning their lime, and with ashes for their grasses, and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no

expense.

The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis. The reason, I presume, why

1 For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats.-G. W.