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White, Gilbert, 1720-1793

"The Natural History of Selborne"

It continued also to lie on thatch,
dies, and the tops of walls.' See Hales's Haemastatics, p. 360.
Quaere.-- 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 ?)
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 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, black-
game, or grouse.


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