North country. The most famous of these was Inglewood. This forest belonged to the Crown, and included a large portion of the Eden Valley. Westward it stretched away towards the marshes of the Solway, which have often engulfed fine stags in their fatal quicksands. It was on the edge of this forest that the monks of Holme Cultram Abbey felled the timber required for the purposes of their large establishment. The monks were required to guard the safety and convenience of the royal quarry. These animals frequently quitted the glades of the oak woods to ravage the standing crops in the vicinity.

It was as a compensation for the damage caused by roving deer that Edward III. bestowed certain privileges of grazing upon the inhabitants of towns like Penrith, which chanced to be situated in proximity to the forest. The same monarch found it difficult to protect his deer from the incursions of Scottish noblemen who proved apt in extending the royal grants with more freedom than probably pleased the English foresters. The exploit of 'Hartshorn Tree' illustrates the splendid endurance of a Westmorland stag. This animal was found in Whinfell Park where the osprey used to nest, and was coursed by a single hound. The stag took a northerly course, and crossed the Esk and the smaller tributary

C

of the Saark, making for Red Kirk in Dumfriesshire. The stag turned homewards from that point, and again ran all along the wooded banks of the Eden until it reached the outside of Brougham Castle. The poor animal found strength to clear the park palings, but expired upon alighting within the enclosure. The noble hound which had made all the running alone was too worn out to clear the palings in his stride. He leapt, but fell backwards, and died upon the outside of the palings. This stirring incident occurred in 1333 or 1334, when Edward Baliol was staying in Westmorland as the guest of the Lord Robert Clifford. The antlers of the stag which showed sport so worthy of a Scottish sovereign were nailed up upon the trunk of a fine oak which grew close to the spot where the stag died. There they remained until the year 1648, when one of the antlers was 'broken down by some of the army.' The tree itself, which had so long been known as 'Hartshorn Tree,' succumbed to the ravages of time in the seventeenth century, but the fame of the extraordinary feat of stag and hound has been handed down to successive generations in the simple distich :

'Hercules kill'd Hart a-greese,

And Hart a-greese kill'd Hercules,'

Inglewood Forest long remained a royal chase. As such it received incidental notice in various public documents. Thus it is mentioned among divers woods, lands, and tenements 'where in his Matie hath a right and title which is by some persons of late controverted,' in a Treasury warrant issued from Whitehall on July 21, 1668. Even after the accession of the Prince of Orange, 'The Town and Manor of Penreth and the Forest of Inglewood were held of her Pr'sent Majesty the Queen Dowager as Lord thereof.' William II. soon granted the manor of Inglewood to the Duke of Portland, who sold it to the Duke of Devonshire in 1737. I have failed to ascertain the precise date at which this historical chase ceased to afford a sanctuary to the red deer. My friend Chancellor Ferguson writes that Edward Hasell, who owned Dalemain from 1794 to 1825, inherited the family sporting tastes, and with his hounds assisted at two occasions which may be called historical-the capture of the last stag on Whinfell, and the capture of the last stag in Inglewood Forest, when these two famous and ancient chases were disforested. The Dalemain hounds continued to find stags in Martindale, where the Countess of Lonsdale, in the glories of a carriage and four and outriders, would not infrequently be seen

gracing the meet' ('The Cumberland Foxhounds,' pp. 8-9).

The Duke of Wharton used to hunt in Martindale, driving to the meet in a coach and six, preceded by a running footman dressed in white. The stags of Martindale must often have wandered across the western fells to Ennerdale, where another herd long existed. The shepherds used to say that old stags sometimes ejected sheep from the Pillar Stone by forking them over the side. It was on the south side of Ennerdale Lake that the deer used to harbour chiefly, on what is called 'The Side,' a spot which was then thickly wooded. The depredations which the Ennerdale deer wrought in the crops of the farmers at Gillerthwaite at the top of the lake, and also on Mireside Farm on the east side, were so great that it became necessary to set old scythes and pitchforks in the gaps and open places in the fences to keep them out of the crops. The Side Wood joined Coupland (also an ancient forest), and ran up to Wasdale Fell, also called Wastall, which in 1671 was 'a large forest or wast ground replenished with Red Deer.' Scawfell was the home of a few deer in the last century. One of these animals was chased into Wast- · water Lake, in which it was drowned. The Martindale deer alone have escaped the fate of extermination meted