40 T^he Natural History of Selborne 



Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by 

 Margaret Hughes ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough 

 family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry 

 Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawell, their son. 



The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, 

 long surviving her husband; and, at her death, left behind 

 her many curious pieces of mechanism of her father's con- 

 structing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist,* as 

 well as warrior ; and among the rest, a very complicated 

 clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game 

 painter at Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 



Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow 

 range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different ; 

 for the Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, 

 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to 

 be large timber; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, 

 sandy, barren waste. 



The former being all in the parish of Binsted, is about 

 two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much 

 from east to west ; and contains within it many woodlands 

 and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside, and 

 a smaller lodge called Goose Green ; and is abutted on by 

 the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley; 

 all of which have right of common. 



One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been 

 of old 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 



* This prince was the inventor of mezzotint o. 



