OF SELBORNE. 33 



is obliged to find the posts and brushwood for the 

 former ; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, fur- 

 nish for the latter; and are all enjoined to cut and 

 deliver the materials at the spot. This custom I men- 

 tion, because I look upon it to be of very remote 

 antiquity. 



LETTER VIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, 

 are three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of 

 which I have nothing particular to say ; and one called 

 Bin's or Bean's Pond, which is worthy the attention of 

 a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the 

 upper end with willows, and with the Carex cespitosa l , 

 it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, 

 teals, snipes, &c. that they breed there. In the winter 

 this covert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes 

 by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious 

 plants 2 . [For which, consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Bar- 

 rington.] 



By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and The Holt, 

 made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the 

 First (which now lies before me), it appears that the 

 limits of the former are much circumscribed. For, to 

 say nothing of the farther side, with which I am not so 



1 I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the 

 foresters torrets ; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets. 



2 Bin's Pond has been drained, and cattle graze in its bed. The 

 covert in which wild ducks and foxes formerly haunted, has almost 

 entirely disappeared. The place has lost much of its attraction for the 

 sportsman ; and the botanist, who might desire to search there for curious 

 plants would now run the risk of being disappointed, as in a thousand 

 other instances, of his expected harvest; deprived, by modern improve- 

 ments, of the soil in which alone his plants would thrive. E. T. B. 



D 



