282 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
when the Welsh King, Howel Dha, in the tenth century, framed 
his code of forest laws, and provided that the Wild Boar should 
be hunted in the month of November, until the time when it 
became actually extinct about the middle of the seventeenth 
century. 
There is a story told of Edward the Confessor’s time, appa- 
rently well authenticated, to the effect that in the Forest of Bern- 
wood, in Buckinghamshire, a large Boar, which had killed many 
an assailant and done much damage, was at length slain by 
a huntsman named Nigell, who was rewarded by the King with a 
present of land, upon which he built a house, which he named 
Boarstall, and this property has descended through the Nigells 
to the Aubreys, in whose possession it remains at the present 
day.* 
William the Conqueror, who spent the greater part of his 
time in hunting, especially in the great forests of Sussex, Hants, 
and Wilts, was so addicted to Boar-hunting that he punished 
with loss of eyes any unauthorised person who should slay 
a Boar. 
Heury I. also was very fond of Boar-hunting, and both he 
and his immediate successors were in the habit of making grants 
of land in different parts of the country to. sportsmen in con- 
sideration of their undertaking to keep a certain number of 
Boar-hounds and Wolf-hounds for the King, or to supply him 
with horses and Boar-spears whenever he came to hunt in their 
neighbourhood. 
Edward the Third used to hunt the Wild Boar in Oxfordshire, 
near Blechesdon, and whenever he went to stay at Cornbury Park, 
in that neighbourhood, was always provided with Boar-spears and 
well-trained hounds. 
The form of the spear seems to have varied at different 
periods. It was originally a stout broad blade, but was after- 
wards made with two or thee sharp forks or prongs, which were 
thought to be more effectual in preventing the Boar from breaking 
through upon the huntsman. The mode of hunting generally 
adopted was to track the Boar to its lair, to rouse him, and hunt 
him till the hounds brought him to bay, and then to ride in and 
* * Archeologia,’ vol. iii., pp. 3, 15; and Blount’s ‘Ancient Tenures,’ 
p- 242 (ed. 1815), 
