NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 19 



but the tree is subject to them, and the wood when cut up is 

 beautifully marked with a multitude of small circles like die 

 finest walnut or bird's-eye maple. 



I forgot to say, with regard to the oak which was blown down, 

 that no tree which fell in this way, if of any si2e, can be put up 

 again and live. I have frequently been consulted, but never 

 advise it. The case is hopeless. 



K'AYKNS, p. 6. These birds are now getting very scarce, 

 by reason of the old ones being shot down and the young ones 

 taken. Davy, the bird-catcher, used to get a quantity of young 

 ones, as many as four nests in a season, from the Isle of Wight. 

 The young ones of late years have come from Plymouth. 



Three or four years since, there were several nests on a 

 gentleman's estate at Bomford. Formerly there were numbers 

 in Hainhault Forest. 



Bird-dealers formerly paid 30s. per dozen for good strong 

 young .ravens, now nestlings fetch 15s. each wholesale. The 

 shepherds in the Isle of Wight say ravens prey largely upon 

 wild rabbits, young and old. Ravens are, in the Isle of Wight, 

 destructive to newly dropped lambs. 



Mi'. Kartlett receives annually several ravens at the Zoological 

 Gardens. They are kept by their owners till they get trouble- 

 some, and are then sent to the Gardens. 



HOLT AND WOLMEE FORESTS, p. 25. A correspondent writes 

 me : 



" I know both Holt and Woliner forests well. The former is 

 on the Gault Clay, with overlying drift beds; the latter upon 

 the Greensand formation terms unknown in White's time. 

 All that remains of both forests is the property of the Crown, 

 and they are covered with thriving young plantations. The 

 old trees are all gone, and the whole is a most uninteresting 

 coiintry nothing to see, nothing doing, and no one living there 

 except a few woodmen in charge. 



"The ironstone to which Mr. White refers as existing in Holt 

 Forest was common to all the Greensand formation, and used 

 to be smelted in Sussex by wood till the coal-smelting drove it 

 out of the market. 



" The matter to which he refers about the disputes as to the 

 timber was common over all England in those days, as it was 

 not known often to whom trees growing on the wastes belonged. 

 All was finally settled and decided by the Disafforesting Acts 

 passed in the years from 1815 to 1820, and the commons and' 

 forests divided into severally among all the different owners.'' 



The railings round St. Paul's Cathedral, a great portion of 



