reyhen was sprung by some
beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsmen cried out, "A hen
pheasant!" but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen.

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 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 yeoman-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
yeoman-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. W