OF 8ELB0BNE, 
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sheep are excluded is because, being such close grazers, 
they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the 
deer from thriving.^ 
Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23), ''to 
burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, 
any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable 
with whipping and confinement in the house of correction 
yet in this forest, about March or April, according to the 
dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, 
that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the 
hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the under- 
woods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has 
ensued.^ The plea for these burnings is, that when the old 
coat of heath, &c. is consumed, young will sprout up, and 
afford much tender browze for cattle : but where there is 
large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the 
very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be 
seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit round 
looking like the cinders of a volcano and, the soil being 
quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for 
years These conflagrations, as they take place usually with 
a north-east or east wind, much annoy this village with 
^ In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till 
lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. — G. W. 
Sheep obtain the first pair of central permanent incisors when about 
fourteen months old, and are then occasionally referred to by the term 
hidentes. As remarked by Mr. Yarrell, it is singular that sheep with a 
single row of incisor teeth pressing against a cartilaginous pad, should 
be able to bite closer than a horse with a well matched double row of 
teeth ; but it is a well known fact that a horse would be starved on 
downs where sheep thrive. — Ed. 
^ In Scotland where the extensive burnings of heath are common, the 
prohibited months have reference to the preservation of the eggs and 
young of grouse and other game, as little other inconvenience is apt to 
ensue when no woods are in the viciuity. 
The Rev. J. Mitford has observed that the description of the con- 
flagration arising from the heath-fires here mentioned reminds the scholar 
of the stubble -burning described in Virgil's Geo?'gics, i. 84, and the 
commentary on the passage, by the elegant and learned Mr, Holdsworth, 
p. 52. Compare Virgilii j^n. ii. 304, Ovid. Epist. xv. 9, and Sil. Itah 
vii. 365. — Ed. 
