52 EOYAL CHASE OF SHIRLOT. 



plied tlie sturdy framework for the half-timbered 

 houses of our ancestors, the rafters for their 

 churches, and the beams for their cathedrals, are 

 gone ; and the mischief is, not only that we have lost 

 former forests, but that our present woods every 

 year are growing less, that much of that shrubby 

 foliage which within our own recollection divided 

 the fields, forming little copses in which a Morland 

 would have revelled, have had to give way to agricul- 

 tural improvements, and the objects of sport they 

 sheltered have disappeared. The badger lingered to 

 the beginning of the present century along the rocks 

 of Benthall and Apley ; and the otter, which still 

 haunts portions of the Severn and its more secluded 

 tributaries, and occasionally afibrds sport in some parts 

 of the country higher up, was far from being rare. On 

 the left bank of the Severn are the " Brock-holes," 

 or badger-holes, whilst near to it are the *' Fox- 

 holes," where tradition alleges foxes a generation or 

 two ago to have been numerous enough to have been 

 a nuisance ; and the same remark may apply to the 

 "Fox-holes" at Benthall. As the district became more 

 cultivated and the country more populated, the range 

 of these animals became more and more circumscribed, 

 and the cherished sports of our forefathers came to 

 form the staple topics of neighbours' oft-told tales. 



