24 
NATURAL HISTORY 
suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain 
spot of thick fern^ went with a lurcher to surprise it, when 
the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast 
spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon the 
neck of the dog, and broke it short in two. 
Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a num- 
ber of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry 
places ; but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on 
account of their burrows, when they came to take away the 
deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them all. 
Such forests and wastes, when the allurements to irregu- 
larities are removed, are of considerable service to neigh- 
bourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with 
peat and turf for their firing, with fuel for the burning their 
lime, and with ashes for their grasses, and by maintaining 
their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no 
expense. 
The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an ad- 
mitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower 
of London) , of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper 
seasons, hidentibus exceptis.^ The reason, I presume, why 
* For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king 
annually seven bushels of oats. — G. W. 
