fern, but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees, though Dr. Plot says positively that "there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." But he was mistaken; for I myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits or some such instruments; but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, that none has been found of late.† Besides the oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood, of a *See his Hist. of Staffordshire..

† Old people have assured me that, on a winter's morning, they have discovered these trees in the bogs by the hoar-frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosopy. Dr. Hales saith, "That the warmth of the earth at some depth under ground has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is manifest from this observation, viz.: Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry, as also where elm-pipes lay under ground; a plain proof, this, that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below them; for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops of walls."-See HALE'S Hamastatics, p. 360. Quere, Might not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses; and, in Roman stations and camps, lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity?

paler colour and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir; but, upon nice examination and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and therefore rather supposed that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but build their nests 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 summer 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 hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsman cried out, "A hen pheasant!" but a gentleman 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, towards 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), 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! But 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 stag-hounds, 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 ex

traordinary 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 afterward. I saw myself one of the yeomen prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything 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.

THOUGH 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. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities, that government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the Black Act,* which now * Statute 9 Geo, I., c. 22.