THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some 
of the people called Quakers. The inhabitants enjoy a good 
share of health and longevity, and the parish swarms with 
childi'en. 
LETTER VL 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 
Should I omit to describe witli some exactness the Forest of 
Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my 
account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district 
abounding with many curious productions, both animal and 
vegetable, and has often afforded me much entertainment both 
as a sportsman and as a naturalist. 
The royal Forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about 
seven miles in length by two-and-a-half in breadth, running 
nearly from north to south, and is abutted on — to begin to 
the south, and so to proceed eastward — by the parishes of 
Greatham, Lysse, Eogate, and Trotton, in tlie county of Sussex ; 
by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists 
entirely of sand, covered with heath and fern ; but is some- 
what diversified with hills and dales, without having one stand- 
ing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the waters 
stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subter- 
raneous trees ; though Dr. Plot says positively ^ that " there never 
w^ere any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern 
counties." P>ut he was mistaken : for I myself have seen 
cottages on the verge of this wild district whose timbers con- 
sisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners 
assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with 
spits, or some such instruments : but the peat is so much cut 
out, and the moors have been so well examined, that none has 
been found of late. Old people, however, have assured me that 
on a winter's morning they have discovered these trees in the 
bogs by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where 
1 See his History of Staffordsliire. 
