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THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

ARRANGED FOR YOUNG PERSONS.

PART I.

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO

THOMAS PENNANT, Esq.

LETTER I.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles southwest of London, in latitude 51°, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley, Mauduit, Great Ward-le-ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the southwest consists of a vast hill of chalk,

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rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheepdown, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down or sheepwalk is a pleasing park-like spot of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-coun. try, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the southeast and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the northeast; which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three quarters of a mile in. length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel· with the Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by the vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appear. ance removed from chalk, but seems so far from being calcareous that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no far. ther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.

The cartway of the village divides in a remark