114 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



called the " Boar's Head," though less celebrated 

 than the one just mentioned. It was situate ia 

 Southwark, and was standing in Henry the Sixth's 

 time. It is referred to in the " Paston Letters," in a 

 letter from Henry Wyndesore to John Paston, dated 

 August 27, 1458. The writer says, — "Please you 

 to remembre my maistre at your best leiser, wheder 

 his old promise shall stande as touchyng my pre- 

 ferrying to the 'Boreshed' in Suthwerke."* 



It is in this same collection that we find mention 

 made of the use of " boar-spears" in Norfolk, in the 

 fifteenth century, first in a petition of John Paston 

 to the King and Parliament, in 1450, touching his 

 expulsion from Gresham by Lord Molyns, whose 

 retainers held forcible possession of this manor "with 

 bore-speres, swordes, and gesemys" (battle-axes) ; 

 and again in a similar petition of Walter Ingham in 



i4S4-t 



The boar-spear of those days was very different 

 from the spear now used by boar-hunters in India. 

 Nicholas Cox, in " The Gentleman's Recreation," 

 first published in 1674, thus describes it: — "The 

 hunting spear must be very sharp and broad, branch- 

 ing forth into certain forks, so that the boar may 

 not break through them upon the huntsman." The 

 modern Anglo-Indian spear is from six to eight feet 

 long ; the shaft of bamboo weighted with lead ; the 

 spear-head a broad and stout blade. 



* " The Paston Letters," ed. Gairdner, vol. i. p. 431. 

 t Op. cit., vol, i., pp. 107, 271. 



