PREFACE xv 



more about the subject. Thirty years later I had the good 

 fortune to make the acquaintance of that rare old antiquary 

 and sportsman, the late Sir Henry Dryden, Bart. Various 

 discussions and correspondence on England's forest law and 

 early hunting led to his desiring me to bring out a new and 

 extended edition of his valuable little treatise. The project 

 got deferred, but this book, in which his drawings of hunting 

 costumes and hounds are reproduced, to some extent fulfils his 

 wishes. 



No one is better aware of the deficiencies of these pages than 

 the writer. It would have been easy enough to have found 

 original material sufficient to fill a volume of this size for almost 

 each of the forests named therein ; in some cases, such as the 

 Peak Forest, Rockingham, and more especially Sherwood, it 

 seemed almost sinful to be content with such brief summaries 

 of a few of the more important facts. Nevertheless, it seemed 

 best on the whole to condense the entire matter within the 

 limits (kindly made more elastic in this case) assigned to the 

 series of "Antiquary's Books." In doing this, certain sections 

 that had been prepared on such subjects as the Clergy and 

 Forest Pleas, Historic Trees, Place and Personal Names in 

 Forest Districts, and a Glossary of Terms had to be abandoned. 

 In the heartless work of cutting down, by more than one half, 

 the material prepared for the press, as well as in other ways, 

 I had the timely assistance of my son, Mr. Cuthbert Machell 

 Cox. 



It might be well for the reader interested in any particular 

 forest or shire to recollect that illustrations of any special topic 

 treated of in the opening chapters are not, as a rule, repeated 

 subsequently ; reference to the index will often supplement 

 , information given under the chapter on a definite shire. It is 

 hoped, too, that the index will serve as a glossary, as each 

 forest term used is explained once or oftener in the text. 



The absence of any reference to the counties of Bedford, 

 Cambridge, Cornwall, Hertford, Lincoln, Middlesex, Mon- 

 mouth, Norfolk, and Suffolk, arises from the fact that there is 



