2 NATURAL HISTORY 



Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, 

 it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in 

 Sussex, viz. Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from 

 the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes 

 are Erashot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley 

 Mauduit 1 , Great Ward le ham 2 , Kingsley, Hedleigh, 

 Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. 

 The soils of this district are almost as various and 

 diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to 

 the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising 

 three hundred feet above the village; and is divided 

 into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging 

 wood called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence 

 is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, 

 whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy 

 foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or 

 sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one 

 mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of 

 the hill-country, where it begins to break down into 

 the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, 

 being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, 

 and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east 

 and east by the vast range of mountains called the 

 Sussex Downs, by Guild Down near Guild ford, and by 

 the Downs round Dorking and Ryegate in Surrey, to 

 the north-east; which, altogether, with the country 



1 In the parochial registers the orthography is Harteley Maudytt. 

 Mauduit, used by Gilbert White, is, however, a more usual reading of 

 M a Id ii it li, the name of the earliest Norman lord ; which was used subse- 

 quently to the Conquest as an adjunct to the Saxon appellation, for the 

 purpose of distinguishing this Harteley from the other Hartleys in the 

 same county to the north of it. E. T. 15. 4 



2 The orthography in the text, though formal in appearance, was 

 deliberately adopted by the author, who, in his first edition, inserted all 

 deviations from it as errata: it is, consequently, preserved throughout. 

 Wordlam is a pronunciation of it not unfrequently used in the neigh- 

 bourhood : but Worldham is the more ordinary name. And in this case 

 I suspect that the vulgar are right ; Werildeham, the oldest name which 

 I find for it, belonging to an era prior to the erection in England of Nor- 

 man castles. E. T. B. 



