Around the forest proper is a wide tract of common land, indistinguishable from moor proper, and this does not belong to the Duchy, but the Duchy exerts, for all that, certain rights over this belt of waste. The parishes contiguous on the moor have what are termed Venville rights, that is to say, rights to cut turf and to free pasturage on the moor; the tenants in Venville may be said to have the right to take anything off the moor that may do them good except green oak and venison, or more properly, vert and venison. This has led to the most ruthless destruction of prehistoric antiquities, as every farmer in Venville carries away as his right any granite-stone that commends itself to him as a gate-post, or a pillar to prop a cowshed; sheep, bullocks, and horses are turned out on Dartmoor, and the horses and ponies live in all weathers on the wilderness, defy all boundaries, and ask for no care, no shelter, no winter quarters. Bullocks and sheep have their lairs, and want to be levant and couchant, and to be cared for in winter, and therefore are not driven on to the moors till spring, and are driven off in autumn. The moor is divided into regions, and over each region is a moorman. In each quarter of the moor a special ear-mark is required for the ponies turned out in that district, a round hole punched in the ear, through which is passed a piece of distinguishing tape, scarlet, blue, white, and black. Ponies wander widely: a herd will disappear from one place and appear at another like magic, in search after pasture; but the moormen of each region claim the fines on the ponies belonging to their region, and, to a certain extent, exercise some sort of supervision over them. Although every tenant in Venville has an undisputed right to free pasturage, yet it is usual for him to fee the moorman for each horse or beast he sends out, and, if this be refused, he may find his cattle stray to a very remarkable extent, and be liable to get "stogged" in the bogs and be lost. As horses, etc., that are driven on parish commons, or on moors belonging to private individuals, very often leave these quarters for the broader expanse of the Royal Forest, it is necessary, or deemed advisable, on certain days arbitrarily determined on, without notice to anyone, to have a "Drift." A messenger is sent round in the night or very early in the morning to the Venville tenants, from the moorman of the quarter, to summon them to the Drift; on certain tors are upright holed stones, through which horns were passed and loudly blown, to announce the Drift. All the neighbourhood is on the alert--dogs, men, boys are about, squires and farmers armed with long whips, and formerly with pistols and short swords and bludgeons.