[6]For a justification of this general picture, I must refer the reader to the next chapter, where references to _Domesday_, as to the state of the district before its afforestation by the Conqueror, and the evidence supplied by the names of places, are given. I may add, as showing the former nature of the woods, that the charcoal found in the barrows, embankments, and the Roman potteries, is made from oak and beech, but principally the latter. Since, too, the deer have been destroyed, young shoots of holly are springing up in all directions, and another generation may, perhaps, see the Forest resembling its old condition. As a proof, beside the entry in _Domesday_, that the Hordle Cliffs were covered with timber, the fishermen dredging for the _septaria_ in the Channel constantly drag up large boles of oaks, locally known as “mootes.” The existence of the chestnut is shown by the large beams in some of the old Forest churches, as at Fawley; but none now exist, except a few, comparatively modern, though very fine, at Boldrewood. Further, the Forest could never, except in the winter, have been very swampy, as the gravelly formation of the greater part of the soil supplies it with a natural drainage. Still, there were swamps, and in the wet places large quantities of bog-oak have been dug up, bearing witness, as in other countries, of an epoch of oaks, which preceded the beech-woods. Gough, in his additions to Camden’s _Britannia_, vol. i., p. 126, describes Godshill as being in his day covered with thick oaks. When, too, Lewis wrote in 1811, old people could then recollect it so densely covered with pollard oaks and hollies that the road was easily lost. (_Historical Enquiries on the New Forest_, p. 79, Foot-note.) No one, I suppose, now believes that wolves were extirpated by Edgar. They and wild boars are expressly mentioned in the Laws of Canute (_Manwood: a Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest_, _f._ 3, § 27, 1615), and lingered in the north of England till Henry VIII.’s reign. (See further on the subject, _The Zoology of Ancient Europe_, by Alfred Newton, p. 24.) I have hesitated, however, to include the beaver, though noticed by Harrison, who wrote in 1574, as in his time frequenting the Taf, in Wales (_Description of England_, prefixed to Holinshed’s _Chronicle_, ch. iv. pp. 225, 226.) The eggs of cranes, bustards, and bitterns, were, we know, protected as late as the middle of the sixteenth century. (_Statutes of the Realm_, vol. iii., p. 445, 25^o Henry VIII., ch. xi., § 4; and vol. iv., p. 109, 3^o, 4^o, Ed. VI., ch. vii.) The last bustard was seen in the Forest, some twenty-five years ago, on Butt’s Plain, near Eyeworth. It is a sad pity that the enormous collection of birds’ bones, described as chiefly those of herons and