NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



23 



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 as often as they have been detected, and rendered 

 liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments can 

 deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting 

 which seems to be inherent in human nature. 



General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his 

 forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and, at one time, a 

 wild bull oj buffalo ; but the country rose upon them and destroyed 

 them.* 



^v^r 



A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, 

 has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest : one fifth of 

 which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell. He lays claim 

 also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and 

 Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them, and 

 assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One 

 man, who keeps a team, has carried home for his share forty stacks of 

 wood. Forty -five of these people his lordship has served with actions. 



* "German boars and sows were also turned out by Charles I. in the New 

 Forest, which bred and increased. Their stock is supposed to exist now, remark- 

 able for the smalluess of their hind-quarters." MITFOBD'S Edit. 



