4-O 'The Natural History of Selborne 



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 sur- 

 viving 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,* 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 of the law. Neither fines nor imprison- 

 ments can deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of 

 sporting which seems to be inherent in human nature. 



General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in 

 his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and, at one 



* This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 



