22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast 

 spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon the neck of 

 the dog, and broke it short in two. 1 



Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of 

 rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry'places : but these 

 being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, 

 when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the country- 

 people to destroy them all. 



Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities 

 are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that 

 verge upon them, by furnishing .them with peat and turf for their 

 firing; with fuel for the burning their lime; and with ashes for 

 their grasses ; and by maintaining their geese and their stock of 

 young cattle at little or no expense. 



The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted 

 claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of London), 

 of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper seasons, " bidentibus 

 exceptis."* The reason, I presume, why sheep f are excluded, 

 is, because, being such close grazers, they would pick out all the 

 finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. 



Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) "to bum on 

 any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, 

 heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable with whipping and 

 confinement in the house of correction ;" yet, in this forest, about 

 March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast 

 heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, 

 and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to 

 the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has 

 ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, when the old coat 

 of heath, etc., is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much 

 tender brouze for cattle ; but, where there is large old furze, the 

 fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground ; so that for 

 hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desola- 



* For this privilege the owners of that estate used to pay to the king annually 

 seven bushels of oats. 



t In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, 

 no sheep are admitted to this day. 



