OF SELSORNE. 25 



sheep are excluded is because, being such close grazers, 

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

 deer from thriving. 1 



Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. 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. 2 The plea for these burnings is, that when the old 

 coat of heath, &c. is consumed, young will sprout up, and 

 afford much tender browze for cattle : but where there is 

 large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the 

 very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be 

 seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit round 

 looking like the cinders of a volcano ; and, the soil being 

 quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for 

 years. These conflagrations, as they take place usually with 

 a north-east or east wind, much annoy this village with 



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

 lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. G. W. 



Sheep obtain the first pair of central permanent incisors when about 

 fourteen months old, and are then occasionally referred to by the term 

 bidentes. As remarked by Mr. Yarrell, it is singular that sheep with a 

 single row of incisor teeth pressing against a cartilaginous pad, should 

 be able to bite closer than a horse with a well matched double row of 

 teeth ; but it is a well known fact that a horse would be starved on 

 downs where sheep thrive. ED. 



2 In Scotland where the extensive burnings of heath are common, the 

 prohibited months have reference to the preservation of the eggs and 

 young of grouse and other game, as little other inconvenience is apt to 

 ensue when no woods are in the vicinity. 



The Rev. J. Mitford has observed that the description of the con- 

 flagration arising from the heath-fires here mentioned reminds the scholar 

 of the stubble -burning described in Virgil's Georgics, i. 84, and the 

 commentary on the passage, by the elegant and learned Mr. Holdsworth, 

 p. 52. Compare Virgilii JEn. u. 304, Ovid. Epist. xv. 9, and Sil. Ital. 

 vii. 365. ED. 



