Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of
which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne
would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious
productions, both animal and vegetable, and has often afforded me much
entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.
The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in
length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from north to south,
and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by
the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of
Sussex; by Bramshot, Hadleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists
entirely of sand covered with heath and fern, but is somewhat diversified
with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole
extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which
formerly abounded with subterraneous trees, though Dr. Plot says
positively, that "there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses
of the southern counties." But he was mistaken: for I myself have seen
cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a
black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they
procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such
instruments: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so
well examined, that none has been found of late. Besides the oak, I have
also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer
nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination,
and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and
therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or
some such aquatic tree.
This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild
fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the
summer: such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have discovered
within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make
excursions; and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and
some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of
unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day.
But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which
I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became
so common, and that was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse. When I
was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father's
table. The last pack remembered was killed about thirty-five years ago;
and within these ten years one solitary greyhen was sprung by some
beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsmen cried out, "A hen
pheasant!" but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen.
Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna
Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is
wanting. I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this century
amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance.
There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great grandfather
(mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and
self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more
than a hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often
told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road,
did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard. For she
came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing
herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to
the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called Queen's Bank, saw with great
complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the
keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred
head. A sight this, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign! But
he farther adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own
expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about
fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the late Duke of
Cumberland. It is now more than thirty years ago that His Highness sent
down a huntsman, and six yeoman-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with
gold, attended by the staghounds, ordering them to take every deer in
this forest alive, and to convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course
of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary
diversion; but in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried
off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for
matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the
yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it
was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything
in Mr. Astley's riding-school. The exertions made by the horse and deer
much exceeded all my expectations, though the former greatly excelled the
latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated from his
companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for
twenty minutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted
to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued.