1 1 4 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



called the "Boar's Head," though less celebrated 

 than the one just mentioned. It was situate in 

 Southwark, and was standing in Henry the Sixth's 

 time. It is referred to in the " Paston Letters," in a 

 letter from Henry Wyndesore to John Paston, dated 

 August 27, 1458. The writer says, "Please you 

 to remembre my maistre at your best leiser, wheder 

 his old promise shall stande as touchyng my pre- 

 ferrying to the 'Boreshed' in Suthwerke."* 



It is in this same collection that we find mention 

 made of the use of "boar-spears" in Norfolk, in the 

 fifteenth century, first in a petition of John Paston 

 to the King and Parliament, in 1450, touching his 

 expulsion from Gresham by Lord Molyns, whose 

 retainers held forcible possession of this man or "with 

 bore-speres, swordes, and gesernys" (battle-axes) ; 

 and again in a similar petition of Walter Ingham in 

 1454-t 



The boar-spear of those days was very different 

 from the spear now used by boar-hunters in India. 

 Nicholas Cox, in " The Gentleman's Recreation," 

 first published in 1674, thus describes it: "The 

 hunting spear must be very sharp and broad, branch- 

 ing forth into certain forks, so that the boar may 

 not break through them upon the huntsman." The 

 modern Anglo-Indian spear is from six to eight feet 

 long ; the shaft of bamboo weighted with lead ; the 

 spear-head a broad and stout blade. 



* " The Paston Letters," ed. Gairdner, vol. i. p. 431. 

 f Op. cit., vol, i., pp. 107, 271. 



