26 The Natural History 



in old records, is held by grant from the crovvn for a term 

 of years. 



The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- 

 General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, 

 who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret 

 Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, 

 who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson 

 Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel, their son. 



The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, 

 long surviving her husband; and, at her death, left 

 behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of her 

 father's constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic 

 and artist,^ as well as warrior; and, among the rest, a 

 very complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. 

 Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Farnham, in the 

 county of Surrey. 



Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow 

 range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different : 

 for the Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, 

 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow 

 to be large timber ; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, 

 sandy, barren waste. 



The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is about 

 two miles in extent from north to south, and near as 

 much from east to west, and contains within it many 

 woodlands and lawns, and the great lodge where the 

 grantees reside ; and a smaller lodge, called Goose-green ; 

 and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, 

 Farnham, and Bentley ; all of which have right of common. 



One thing is remarkable; that, though the Holt has been 

 of old well-stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any 

 pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they 

 were never seen within the limits of Wolmer ; nor were 

 the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets 

 or glades of the Holt. 



At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and 



reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually harass 



them in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the 



severe penalties that have been put in force against them 



^ This prince was the inventor of fnezzoiinto. 



