39, NATURAL HISTORY ‘| 
and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords a safe and 
pleasant shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, &c. 
In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes, 
and sometimes by pheasants ; and the bogs produce 
many curious plants. 
By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the 
Holt, made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of 
Charles the First (which now lies before me), it 
appears that the limits of the former are much cir- 
cumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther 
side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the 
bounds on this side, in old times, came into Bins- 
wood, and extended to the ditch of Ward-le-ham 
Park, in which stands the curious mount called 
King John’s Hill and Lodge Hill, and to the verge 
of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit-hatch ; com. 
prehending also Shortheath, Oakhanger, and Oak- 
woods; a large district, now private property, 
though once belonging to the royal domain. 
It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never 
once mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It 
contains, besides the perambulation, a rough esti- 
mate of the value of the timbers, which were con. 
siderable, growing at that time in the district of the 
Holt ; and enumerates the officers, superior and 
inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being, 
and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those 
days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in 
Wolmer Forest. 
* IT mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called 
by the foresters torrets ; a corruption, | suppose, of turrets. 
Note.—In the beginning of the summer, 1787, the royal for- 
ests of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent dowa 
by government. 
