cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all particulars for the present till I enter professedly on my series of letters respecting the more remote history of this village and district.

LETTER IX. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,* as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of years.

The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier General Emanuel Scroope Howe and his lady, Ruperta (who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret Hughes), a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager lady Pembroke, Henry Bilson Legge and lady, and now Lord Stawel, their son.

The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her husband; and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of her father's constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist,t as well as warrior, and, among the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Farnham, in the county of Surrey.

Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different ; for the Holt consists of a strong loam of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to be large timber, while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, sandy, barren waste.‡

"In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest. in Scaccar. 36 Ed. 3. it is called Aisholt." In the same, "Tit Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam capellam in haia suâ Kingesle." "Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus: a Gall. haie and haye."-Spelman's Glossary.

+ The invention of mezzotinto engraving is generally ascribed to Prince Rupert, though some would rather assign it to Lieut. Col. Siegend, an officer in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse, so early as in the year 1643, from whom, it is said, the prince derived the secret. In Elme's life of Sir Christopher Wren, it is attributed to that eminent architect; and the editor of "Parentalia," speaking on this subject with decision, states that "he [Sir Christopher] was the first inventor of the art of engraving in mezzotinto, which was afterwards prosecuted and improved by his royal highness Prince Rupert, in a manner somewhat different, upon the suggestion, it is said, of the learned John Evelyn, Esq."-ED.

A stiff, clayey soil, well drained, is of all others the most congenial and adapted to the

The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is about two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from east

constitution of the oak. If water stagnates around, they never grow to be fine timber. Botanists admit but two species as indigenous to this country: the "Quercus robur," and "Q. sessiliflora ;" the former of which is the redoubtable "king of the forest." Of this tree-England's native bulwark-many most gigantic examples are upon record; the very finest of all which, known to have grown in the country, is beyond compare that magnificent piece of timber which was dug out of Hatfield bog, and which is noticed in the Philosophical Transactions, as quoted in Evelyn's "Sylva." It is described to have been 120 feet in length, twelve in diameter at the base, ten in the middle, and six at the smaller end, where broken off; so that the butt for sixty feet, squared seven feet of solid timber, and four its entire length. The most celebrated giant oaks, however, of the present day, are mostly those of a form unfit for the purposes of the timber merchant, and which, on this account only, have been allowed to stand. The most extraordinary of these is the noted Cowthorpe oak, situate near Wetherby, in Yorkshire (about nine miles from York, and the same distance from Harrowgate), upon the estate of the Right Hon. Lady Stourton. This vegetable wonder, and living monument of by-gone ages, calculated to be about 1800 years old, has at length become a vast sylvan ruin. According to a recent measurement, it appears to be twenty-two yards in circumference close to the ground, and nearly sixteen at the height of three feet; its principal limb extending forty-eight feet from the bole. The leading branch fell by a storm in 1718, which, being measured with accuracy, was found to contain five tons and two hundred weight of timber. Before this accidental mutilation, its branches are Isaid to have extended their shade over half an acre of ground; thus constituting, in a single tree, almost a wood of itself. Its immense arms, themselves in appearance full grown trees, are now supported by a number of strong props of timber. Dr. Hunter, who visited it in 1776, describes its height,

in its then "ruinous state" to have been nearly eighty-five feet; and adds, "that throughout the whole tree the foliage is extremely thin, so that the anatomy of its ancient branches may be distinctly seen at the height of summer. Compared with this," he continues, "all other trees are but as children of the forest."

Professor Burnet very justly observes, in reference to this wonderful oak, that few persons form any thing like "a just estimate of the actual size of trees. Nay, figures themselves, to the generality of mankind, convey but very imperfect conceptions of length, and breadth, and height, and girt. Some more familiar representations are wanted to prove that a majestic tree, which is only in moderate proportion as an ornament to nature in the country, is really an enormous mass, and would be esteemed a great and glorious structure amongst the dwellings and palaces of men." The professor then proceeds to exemplify this remark by stating that, "in Little-white lion-street, Long-acre, the inspectors of a district visiting society found, some months ago, a house, the internal area of which is only twelve feet by twenty-four (not half that of the Cowthorpe oak, which, according to his description of it, is twenty-six feet in diameter), containing nine small rooms, in which there dwelt-i. e. eat, drank, and slept, and did all that poor mortality requires-no less than eleven men, thirteen women, and sixty-nine children, making a total of ninety-three human beings crowded into less space than is enjoyed by a single tree."

The same writer also remarks that "the chapel of St. Bartholomew's, in the hamlet of Kingsland, between London and Hackney, which, besides desks for the clergyman and clerk, altar, &c. has pews and seats for 120 persons, is yet nine feet less in width, and only seventeen inches more in length, than the ground plot of this astonishing oak."-Burnett's Amanitates Querne. Many other immense trees of this species might be enumerated; yet still, however, the very largest of the vegetable productions of Europe-almost incredible as are the corroborated accounts of the oaks, yews, Spanish-chestnuts, and various other trees that are to be found in this portion of the globe-sink into comparative insignificance with the gigantic vegetation of tropical coun

to west, and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees resided, and a smaller lodge called Goose-green, and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley, all of which have right of

common

One thing is remarkable, that, though the Holt has been of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of Wolmer, nor were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of the Holt.

At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by the night hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been detected and rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines

nor imprisonments can deter them: so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting, which seems to be inherent in hu

man nature.

General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo: but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.

Wild Boar.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in the Holt forest, one fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and top: but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham,

tries. The stately forests of Java, where the trees average a height of from 150 to 200 feet, the latter being (to adduce as familiar a comparison as possible) about the altitude of the London monument, and after contemplating which, Sir Stamford Raffles speaks of the "pigmy vegeta tion" of Eur pe. The huge zamang of Guayra, in South America, a beautiful species of mimosa, whose enormous extent of branches covers a hemispherical top 614 feet in circumference, and of which Humboldt observes that "the first conquerors found it nearly in the same state in which we now see it," and adds that "since it has been attentively observed no change has been noticed in its size or form." The majestic baobabs of Africa, exceeding 100 feet in girth, calculated by Adanson to be upwards of 5000 years old, and considered by Humboldt to be the oldest organic monument of our planet. The immense deciduous cypress, in the church-yard of Santa Maria da Tesla, two leagues and a half west of Oaxaca, in Mexico, the trunk of which (as measured by Mr. Exton, in 1827) is 127 English feet in circumference, and 130 feet in height, and which appeared in the prime of its growth, and had not a single dead branch, being calculated by the younger De Candolle, to be older than even the baobabs themselves. The living temple of the saered banyan, and, indeed, many that to enumerate would far exceed the limits of a note. Probably the largest tree now growing in Europe is the gigantic Spanish chestnut (castanea vesca) on Mount Etna.-ED.

Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them; and, assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home, for his share, forty stacks of wood. Forty-five of these people his Lordship has served with actions. These trees, which were very sound, and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz. in February and March, before the bark would run. In old times the Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure, from water-carriage, viz. from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half the distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming in the county of Surrey,

LETTER X. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

August 4, 1767

It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood.

As to swallows, hirundines rustica, being found in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight, or any part of this country, I never heard any such account worth attending to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn, assures me that, when he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts (hirundines apodes)* among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead ; but, on being carried towards the fire, revived. He told me that, out of his great care to preserve them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they were suffocated.

Another intelligent person has informed me that, while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragnient of the chalk-cliff fell down one stormy winter on the beach, and that many people found swallows among the rubbish; but, on

• Cypselus murarius of modern naturalists.-ED.

my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the negative; but that others assured him they did.

Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July the eleventh, and young martins (hirundines urbica) were then fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once. For I see by my fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so late as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migration? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the twenty-ninth; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October.

How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle of August invariably! while the latter stay often till the middle of October; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of November. The martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together-an uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds.*

A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda trivialis,† or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher.§ There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times together.

I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla tro

* Certainly an uncommon assemblage for the time of the year, though by no means so in the spring. For many seasons I have noticed both redwing and fieldfare thrushes in Surrey, until about the first week in May, sometimes till even the second. Flocks of mavis, or song thrushes, too, I have observed till about the beginning of May, which, no doubt, were foreigners, and departed with the red-wings. By the time these leave us, a considerable number of our residents, of the same species, have reared their first broods.-ED.

+ A name which has been applied to the common pipit (anthus communis), but by which Mr. White here intends the brake-locustelle, or "grasshopper-warbler" of the brooks (salicaria locustella dumeticola). For an account of which, see note to page 47.-ED.

The bird alluded to is the sibilous petty chaps, or "wood-wren," as it is generally called (sylvia sibilano).-ED.

This very common species in the south of England, the gray fly-catcher (Muscicapa grisola), is in Kent provincially termed the "post-bird," from its habit of sitting on rails or posts. In Surrey it is more commonly called "fly-catcher.-ED.