OF SELBORNE. 31 



dry places ; but these being inconvenient to the hunts- 

 men, on account of their burrows, when they came to 

 take away the deer, they permitted the country people 

 to destroy them all. 



Such forests and wastes, when the allurements to 

 irregularities are removed, are of considerable service 

 to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing 

 them with peat and turf for their firing ; with fuel for 

 the burning their lime ; and with ashes for their grasses ; 

 and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young 

 cattle at little or no expense. 



The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an 

 admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the 

 Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the 

 forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis 3 . The 

 reason, I presume, why sheep 4 are excluded, is, be- 

 cause, being such close grazers, they would pick out all 

 the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving 5 . 



Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23), 

 " to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Mid- 

 summer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, 

 is punishable with whipping and confinement in the 

 house of correction 6 ;" yet, in this forest, about March 



3 For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king 

 annually seven bushels of oats. 



4 In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till 

 lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. 



5 Sheep obtain the first pair of central permanent incisors when about 

 fourteen months old, and are then occasionally referred to by the term 

 bidentes. 



It is singular that sheep with a single row of incisor teeth pressing 

 against a cartilaginous pad, should be able to bite closer than a horse 

 with a well matched double row of teeth ; but it is a well known fact 

 that a horse would be starved on downs where sheep thrive. W. Y. 



6 In Scotland where the extensive burnings of heath are common, the 

 prohibited months have reference to the preservation of the eggs and 

 young of grouse and other game, as little other inconvenience is apt to 

 ensue when no woods are in the vicinity. It is a very splendid spectacle 

 to see, during a dai'k night, the skirts of a mountain range as far as the 

 eye can reach, enveloped in one expanded sheet of fire and flarne. Even 

 in the daytime, the pale blue smoke of Muir-burn, as it is termed, is a very 



