this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation,
a rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which were
considerable, growing at that time in the district of the Halt; and
enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests,
for the time being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In
those days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer-
forest.

Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable lakes,
Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer; all of which are stocked with
carp, tench, eels, and perch; but the fish do not thrive well, because
the water is hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand.

A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means
peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence; and that is, that
instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows,
calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water during the hotter
hours; where, being more exempt from flies, and inhaling the
coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only to mid-
leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the
morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their feeding.
During this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in
which insects nestle; and so supply food for the fish, which would
be poorly subsisted but from this contingency. Thus nature, who is
a great economist, converts the recreation of one animal to the
support of another! Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural
occurrences, did not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He
says, in his Summer:

A various group the herds and flocks compose: