40 NATURAL HISTORY 
The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced 
age, long surviving her husband; and at her death 
left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism 
of her father’s constructing, who was a distinguish- 
ed mechanic and artist* as well as warrior; and 
among the rest a very complicated clock, lately in 
possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game paint- 
er at Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 
Though these two forests are only parted by a 
narrow range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be 
more different; for the Holt consists of a strong 
loam of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and 
abounding with oaks that grow to be large timber, 
while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, sandy, bar- 
ren waste. 
The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is 
about two miles in extent from north to south, and 
near as much from east to west, and contains with 
in it many woodlands and lawns, and the Great 
Lodge where the grantees reside, and a smaller 
lodge called Goose Green ; and is abutted on by the 
parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and 
Bentley, all of which have right of common. 
One thing is remarkable, that, though the Holt 
has been of old well stocked with fallow deer, un- 
restrained by any pales or fences more than a com- 
mon hedge, yet they are never seen within the 
limits of Wolmer: nor were the red deer of Wol- 
mer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of 
the Holt. A ; 
At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned 
and reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually 
* This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 
