NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 27 
well stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences 
more than a common hedge, yet they were never seen within the 
limits of Wolmer ; nor were the red deer of Wolmer ever known 
to haunt the thickets or glades of the Holt. 
At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by 
the night hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the 
efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been 
put in force against them as often as they have been detected, and 
rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprison- 
ments can deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit 
of sporting which seems to be inherent in human nature. 
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WILD BOAR. 
General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in 
his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and, at one 
time, a wild bull or buffalo; but the country rose upon them and 
destroyed them.* 
A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand 
oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest : one 
fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell. He 
lays claim also to the lop and top; but the poor of the parishes of 
Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs 
to them, and assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken 
it allaway. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home for his 
* “German boars and sows were also turned out by Charles I. in the New Forest, 
which bred and increased. Their stock is supposed to exist now, remarkable for the 
smallness of their hind-quarters.”—MutTForp’s Edit. 
