3b NATURAL HISTORY 



themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth 

 in little parties (for in their natural state they are all 

 birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows ; 

 returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had 

 this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted 

 round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), 

 it might make a valuable decoy. 



Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, 

 nor the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its 

 picturesque groups of cattle, can render this mere so 

 remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were 

 found in its bed about forty years ago. But as such 

 discoveries more properly belong to the Antiquities of 

 this place, I shall suppress all particulars, for the pre- 

 sent, till I enter professedly on my series of Letters 

 respecting the more remote history of this village and 

 district. 



LETTER IX. 



TO THE SAME. 



BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more 

 on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her 

 sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt 1 , as it is 

 called in old records, is held by grant from the crown 

 for a term of years. 



The grantees that the author remembers are Briga- 

 dier-general Emanuel Scroop Howe, and his lady, Ru- 



1 In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. III. it is called 

 Aisholt. 



In the same, " Tit. Woolmer & Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet 

 uiiain capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " llnin, sepes, sepimentum, 

 parcus: a Gall, haie and haye." Spelman's Glossary. 



[Several additional documents relating to the earlier history of the 

 forests, both that of Wolmer and The Holt, are given in a note on 

 Letter X. of the Antiquities.] 



