OF SELBORNE. 23 



district, now private property, though once belonging to the 

 royal domain. 



It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once men- 

 tioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides 

 the perambulation, a rough estimate of the value of the tim- 

 bers, which were considerable, 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. 



Within the present limits of the forest are three consider- 

 able lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer; all of which are 

 stocked with carp, tench, eels, and perch : but the fish do not 

 thrive well, because the water is hungry, and the bottoms are 

 a naked sand*. 



A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no 

 means peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence ; and 

 that is, that instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether 

 oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water 

 during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt from 

 flies, and inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly 

 deep, and some only to mid-leg, they ruminate and solace 

 themselves from about ten in the morning till four in 

 the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. During 

 this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, 

 in which insects nestle; and so supply food for the fish, 

 which would be poorly subsisted but from this contin- 

 gency. Thus Nature, who is a great economist, converts 

 the recreation of one animal to the support of another ! 

 Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did 

 not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He says, in 

 his Summer, 



* [" It is remarkable that these three ponds are named respectively after 

 three animals which, formerly indigenous in this country, are now extinct. 

 Hogmer, after the wild boar, Cranmer, after the crane, and Wolmer, an- 

 ciently Wolvemere, after the wolf, which doubtless formerly haunted this 

 wild district. The fish mentioned in the text are now, I believe, quite 

 extinct in these ponds." T. B. in a note to the edition published by the 

 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.] 



