92 THE NEW FOREST 



deer, of which the Forest officials can keep no 

 count, and over which they have no control. 



These deer are to be found outside the Forest 

 in considerable but unascertained numbers, in 

 woods running nearly to Salisbury. They are to 

 be found in the Norman Court Woods, adjoining 

 the old Forest of Clarendon. It would be no 

 great stretch if one were to say that the deer 

 of New Forest and Clarendon now intermixed, 

 and that is what we never hear of in the ancient 

 days, when Clarendon and New Forest were both 

 well stocked deer forests, under different control. 



Inside the New Forest all we could do was 

 to peg away at all the deer we could find, and 

 kill as many as we could in the time that could 

 be spared for such work. But the stock was like 

 a widow's cruse, for often, when we thought the 

 herd frequenting a particular place had been 

 accounted for, a fresh lot would, as it were, drop 

 from the sky from one of these outlying places, 

 and place us just where we started from, as to 

 numbers, to be dealt with. 



The contribution I got from the Office of 

 Woods towards this work consisted in the cost 

 of the cartridges used, and latterly the cost of 

 the licences taken by the keepers for the hounds 

 they used. Towards the cost of these hounds 

 (and it was often considerable), and towards their 



