24 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 num- 

 ber 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 the allurements to irregu- 

 larities 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 ad- 

 mitted 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 exceptis. 1 The reason, I presume, why 



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

 annually seven bushels of oats. G. W. 



