OF SELBORNE. 31 



red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or 

 glades of The Holt. 1 



At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned and 



TALLOW DEER. 



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 



1 Mr. Bennett lias pointed out that there could scarcely be two situ- 

 ations more dissimilar than The Holt and Wolmer Forest. The Holt ^ 

 is on the gault, and has all the richness of meadow and nobleness of oak K^, 

 wood that distinguish that formation. It consequently offered to the 

 fallow deer, while they remained on it, plentiful grazing, abundance of p 

 browzing, and open and sheltered glades ; advantages suited to the 

 habits of that half domesticated race, introduced into this country by 

 man, and still requiring at his hands care and protection. Wolmer 

 Forest, on the lean and hungry sand, scarcely affords any grass, and has 

 no high covert ; and the red deer attached to it would have been limited 

 for their provender almost exclusively to the lichens, the heath tops, 

 and the twigs of the very few stunted bushes that occur here and there 

 on its surface : retirement could only have been obtained for them by 

 plunging into the unfrequented hollows interposed between its ridges. 

 The more tender and exotic deer was placed, and it might have seemed 

 almost naturally, in the richer and more sheltered forest of The Holt ; 

 the hardier and native race subsisted on the coarse fare of the dreary 

 and cheerless waste of Wolmer. ED. 



