xxvi NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
least whilst the 'last wolf was still prowling in the Forest of 
Gait res. 
" Strensall Moor, Stockton Forest, Langwith Moor, etc., are 
all relics of the Forest of Galtres, an ancient royal demesne of 
the Saxon kings, in which roamed the stag, bear, wolf, and wild 
boar. A perambulation made in the ninth year of Edward II. 
found it to extend from the walls of York northwards nearly 
twenty miles, viz. to Isurium (Aldburgh), and eastwards to the 
river Derwent. Several hamlets had sprung up on it, and a few 
solitary granges — moated round to protect the inmates from 
wolves, biped and quadruped. (One of these moated granges 
was still the only habitation on Langwith Moor in 1842, when I 
showed Mr. Borrer Jicng. Francisci in fruit growing close by.) 
Camden calls it ' Calaterium Nemus, vulgo The Forest of Galtres 
. . . arboribus alicubi opacum, alicubi uliginosa planitie mades- 
cens.' In his time it stretched northwards only to Craike Castle 
and the source of the river Foss : ' Fossa, amnis piger . . . 
originem habet ultra Castellum Huttonicum, terminatque fines 
Calaterii nemoris,' etc. (Bn't. fol. 1607, p^^. 588). What remains 
of it now i'^, only here and there a fragmentary ' uliginosa planities ' 
— still rich in Sphagna, bog Hypna, and numerous other Mosses 
and Jungermannise — to say nothing of nobler plants — and in the 
drier parts adorned with wide beds of Cetraria islandica and 
Cenomyce raiigiferina, associated with Dicranum spurium, 
Bartramia arcuata, Racomitrhim lanuginosn7n (often fertile), and 
other tall Mosses. 
" Tradition reports — but adds no date to the supposed fact — 
that the last wolf in England was killed on the borders of the 
Forest of Galtres, at Stittenham, two miles from where I am 
writing, by one of the Gowers, of which noble family Stittenham 
was (and still is) an ancient possession. The crest of the Gowers 
is ' a wolf passant argent,' etc., and over the family vault in the 
neighbouring church of Sheriff Hutton are suspended the funereal 
trophies of a Gower, viz. a casque, gauntlets, etc., and a pennon, 
now faded, but said to have been blazoned with the representation 
of a combat between a man and a wolf. Whether, however, the 
badge was assumed from that heroic action, or the tradition was 
founded on the badge, let the heralds decide.^ 
" I conclude this note by earnestly beseeching our local 
botanists to lose no time in exploring the moors that still remain 
untouched by cultivation in the Vale of York and elsewhere. On 
the wide plain between the Ouse and the foot of the wolds there 
^ Spruce has added in pencil on the margin " 1660," as if he had since 
ascertained the date of this event. 
