22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



and widgeons, of various denominations ; where they preen and solace, 

 and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little 

 parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to 

 feed in the brooks and meadows ; returning again with the dawn of the 

 morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted 

 round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a 

 valuable decoy. 



Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort 

 of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can 

 render this meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that 

 were found in its bed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries 

 more properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall 

 suppress all particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my 

 series of letters respecting the more remote history of this village and 

 district. 



LETTEE IX. 



TO THE SAME. 



BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, 

 to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias 

 Alice Holt,* as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the 

 crown for a term of years. 



The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General 

 Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Euperta, who was a natural 

 daughter of Prince Eupert by Margaret Hughes ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of 

 the Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; 

 Henry Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawell, 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,t 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 d-ifferent ; 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 



* "In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Edw. III., it is called 

 Aisholt." 



In the same, "Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam 

 capellam in haia sua de Kingesle. " ' ' Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus ; a Gall, 

 hale and haye." SPELMAN'S Glossary. 



t This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 



