16 ROYAL FORESTS. 



extraordinary manner : Some fellows, suspecting that a calf 

 new fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went 

 with a lurcher to surprise it ; when the parent hind rushed out 

 of the brake, and, taking a vast spring, with all her feet close 

 together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short 

 in two .* 



Another temptation to idleness and sporting, was a number 

 of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places ; 

 but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of 

 their burrows, when they came to take away the deer, they 

 permitted the country people to destroy them all. 



Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irre- 

 gularities are removed, are of considerable service to neigh- 

 bourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat 

 and turf for their firing; with fuel for the burning their lime; 

 and with ashes for their grasses ; and by maintaining their 

 geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no expense. 



The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted 

 claim, I see, (by an old record taken from the Tower of 

 London,) of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper 

 seasons, bidentibus exceptls.^ The reason, I presume, why 

 sheep If are excluded is, because, being such close grazers, 

 they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer 

 from thriving. 



Though (by statute 4th and 5th William and Mary, c. 23) 

 " to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, 

 any grig, ling, heath, and furze, goss or fern, is punishable 

 with whipping, and confinement in the house of correction ; " 

 yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the 

 dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, 

 that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the 

 hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the under- 

 woods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. 



* The hind will expose herself to the fury of the hounds, and suffer 

 all the terrors of the chase, in order to draw off the dogs from the hiding- 

 place of the calf. She is exceedingly bold in the protection of her 

 offspring, defends herself with great courage, and frequently obliges 

 the dog and wolf to give way upon these occasions. William Duke of 

 Cumberland caused a stag and tiger to be enclosed in the same area, to 

 see the result ; and the stag made so bold a defence, that the tiger was 

 obliged to give up the contest. ED. 



f For this privilege, the owner of that estate used to pay to the king 

 annually seven bushels of oats. 



J In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow deer has been kept up till 

 lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. 



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