THE NEW FOREST. 59 



something after the manner of the guachos ; but their noose 

 and their mode of using it are very clumsy and bungling 

 compared with the American lasso." * 



The forest borderers have a right to feed their hogs in 

 the forest during the pannage month, which commences 

 about the end of September, and lasts six weeks.t The 

 swineherd, who generally takes charge of a drove of five 

 or six hundred hogs at once, by feeding them in the first 

 instance to the sound of a horn, can always collect them 

 afterwards and prevent their straying by means of the 

 same rude music. Droves of these most inharmonious 

 animals are most frequently encountered in Bolderwood 

 Walk, on account of the profusion of its beech-mast. 



Besides those ' seasonal' hogs, there are wild hogs. 

 The true New Forest breed of hogs may be said to be 

 peculiar, and not known, at least generally, even in the 

 adjoining parts of the southern counties. The usual 

 account of these peculiar hogs, which are found only in the 

 uninhabited and thickly-wooded districts of the forest, is, 

 that they are a 'cross' from the wild boar of Germany, 

 imported into this forest by Charles I.J Their colour is 

 generally dark brindled, and sometimes entirely black. 

 Their ears are short, firm, and erect ; and when they are 

 excited, there is a fiery glance or glare in the eye. They 

 are social animals, and are generally seen in small herds, 

 led on by one patriarchal male. In their pereginations of 

 the forest they do little mischief, and appear to fear as 

 little. Their number is now much more scanty than it 

 once was. 



The following graphic account of the swine-herds of the 

 New Forest is given by the Rev. Mr Gilpin, who spent 

 the latter part of his life in the town of Boldre, in the 

 New Forest, where he died in 1804 at the age of four- 



* Martin's History of the Horse. 



t The right of fattening hogs in this and the other royal forests is very ancient, cer- 

 tainly anterior to the time of the conquest, but how long anterior we have not the 

 means of ascertaining. The borderers pay a trifle to the steward's court at Lyndhurst. 



I The king's experiment of restoring the hunting of the noble game the wild boar- 

 was defeated by ' - A " 



