22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the 

 spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to 

 be of very remote antiquity. 



LETTER VIII. 



ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are 

 three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have 

 nothing particular to say ; and one called Bin's, or Bean's 

 Pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a 

 sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with 

 willows, and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords such a 

 safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc., 

 that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also 

 frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; and the 

 bogs produce many curious plants. (For which consult 

 Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.) 



By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, 

 made in 1635, and the eleventh year of Charles I. (which 

 now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former 

 are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther 

 side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds 

 on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ; and 

 extended to the ditch of Ward-le-ham Park, in which 

 stands the curious mount called King John's Hill, and 



* I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the 

 foresters torrets ; a corruption, I suppose,- of turrets. 



NOTE. In the beginning of the summer of 1787, the royal forests 

 of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by 

 government. 



