ifl
fir: but, upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could dif-
cover nothing refinous in them; and therefore rather fuppofe that
they were parts of a willow or alder, or fome fuch aquatic tree.
This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many forts of
wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed
there in the fummer; fuch as lapwings, fnipes, wild-ducks, and,
, as I have difcovered within thefe few years, teals. Partridges in vaft
plenty are bred in good feafons on the verge of this foreft, into
/which they love to make excurfions: and in particular, in the dry
W fummer of 1740 and 1741, and fome years after, they fwarmed to
/((Much a degree that parties of unreafonable fportfmen killed twenty
and fometimes thirty brace in a day.
But there was a nobler fpecies of game in this. foreft, now extinct,
which I have heard old people fay abounded much before
fhooting flying became fo common, and that was the heath-cock,
Mack game, or groufe. When I was a little boy I recolledt one
coming now and then to my father’s table. The laft pack remembered
was killed about thirty-five years ago; and within thefe ten
years one folitary grey hen was fprung by fome beagles in beating
fora hare. The fportfmen cried out, “ A hen pheafant;” but a
gentleman prefent, who had often feen groufe in thg north o f England,
aflured me that it was a greyhen.
Nor does :the lofs of our black game prove the only gap in die
„ ** Fatma Selbor.nienfis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings
* - - * <c earth from afcend'mg from greater depths below them : for the fnow lay where the drain
m “ had more than four feet depth o f earth over it. It continued alfo to lie on thatch, tiles,
“ and the tops o f walls.” See Hales's Hzemaftatics: p. 360. Quere, Might not fuch
. obfervations be recluced to domeftic ufe, by promoting the difcovery o f old obliterated
Y drains and wells about houfes j and in Roman ftations and camps lead to the finding o f
pavements, baths and graves, and other hidden relics o f curious-antiquity ?
gill | * i-s
is wanting, I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this
century amountedto about five hundved head, and made a {lately appearance.
There.is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whofe
great grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635)
grandfather, father, and felf, enjoyed the head keqperfhip of IVof
mer, foreft in fucceffion for more, than an hundred years. This
perfon allures me, that his father has often told him, that Queen
Anne, as fhe was journeying on the Portfmouth road, did n o t t h i n k n 'u *
the foreft of Wolrnr beneath her royal regard. For fhe came out
of the great road at Lifpock, which is juft by, and, repofing herfelEv^ ^
on a bank fmoothed for that purpofe, lying about half a mile to ffij f e .f r ,,
■ eaft of Wolmer-pond, - .and ftill called Queeris-bank, faw with great
complacency and fatisfaftion the whole herd of red deer brought
by die keepers along the vale before her, confifting then of about
five hundred head. A fight this worthy the attention of the
.greateft fovereign! But he farther adds-that, by means of the Waltham
blacks, or, to ufe hissown expreffion, as foon as diey began
blacking, -they were reduced to about fifty head, and fo, continued
decreafing rill the time of the late Duke of Cumberland.
It is now more than thirty years ago that his highnefs fent down
an huntfman, and fix yeomen-prickers, in fcarletjackets lace wit
golds attended by the ftag-hounds; ordering them to take every _
deer in this' foreft: alive, and to convey-them in carts to, Windfor. ^ &
In the courfe of the fummer they caught every flag, fome of which .
lhewed extraordinary diverfion: but, in the following winter, when jp g . _ te/4—/•
the hinds were alfo carried off, fuch fine chafes were exhibited a s ^ ,^
ferved the country people for matter of talk and wonder for years/-— - -
afterwards. I faw myfelf one of the yeomen-prickers fingle out a
flag from the herd, and muft confefs that it was the moft curious |
feat of adivity I ever beheld, fuperior to any thing in Mr. AJlley's
D riding