24 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of 

 years. 



The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- 

 General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, 

 who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret 

 Hughs ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, 

 who married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson 

 Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel, 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 

 constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and 

 artist, 1 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 

 1 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 



