NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 13 



walls ; this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has 

 occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, " whether 

 we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails." 



LETTER V. 



AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow 

 lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our 

 attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by 

 the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through 

 the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second ; 

 so that they look more like water-courses than roads ; and are 

 bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places 

 they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the 

 fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and 

 wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among 

 the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken sides ; 

 and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging 

 in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged gloomy 

 scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from 

 the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they 

 ride along them; but delight the naturalist with their various 

 botany, and particularly with their curious filices with which they 

 abound. 



The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all 

 its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with 

 game ; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound ; and in 

 old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, 

 because they more affect open fields than enclosures ; after harves 

 some few landrails are seen. 



The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a 

 vast district. Those who tread the bounds are employed part 

 of three days in the business, and are of opinion that the outline, 

 in all its curves and indentings, does not comprise less than thirty 

 miles. 



