Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/277

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The Wild Ponies and Boars.

accomplish. I can only here deal with the ornithology as I have with the botany. I do not know either that the general reader will lose anything by the treatment. A scientific knowledge is not so much needed as, first of all, a sympathy with nature, and a love for all her forms of beauty. The great object in life is not to know, but to feel. But, before we speak of the birds, let us correct some errors which are so common with regard to the animals. It is quite a mistake to talk of wild boars or wild ponies roaming over the Forest. There is not now an animal here without an owner. The wild boars introduced by Charles I., and others brought over some fifty years ago, are seen only in their tame descendants—sandy-coloured, or "badger-pied," as they are called, which are turned out into the Forest during the pannage months.^[1]

So, too, the Forest ponies never run wild, except in the sense of being unbroken. Lath-legged, small-bodied, and heavy-headed, but strong and hardy, living on nothing in the winter but the furze, they are commonly said, without the

↑ The Forest would afford a good field for deciding the controversy as to whether our tame pigs are descended from the European Wild Boar. (See Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1861, p. 264; and Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Third Series, vol. ix. p. 415.) Certain it is that here are some breeds distinct in their markings. I must not, too, forget to mention Coronella lævis (Boie), which is found in the Forest, as also in Dorsetshire and Kent. This is the Coronella austriaca of Laurenti, and afterwards the Coluber lævis of Lacépede. It might be mistaken for the common viper (Pelias berus), but differs in not being venomous, as also from the ringed snake (Natrix torquata) in having a fang at the hinder extremity of its jaws, the peculiarity of the genus Coronella. It feeds on lizards, which its fang enables it to hold; drinks a great deal of water; and Dr. Glinther, of the British Museum, to whom I am indebted for the above information, tells me that it crawls up the furze and low bushes to lick the rain off the leaves. For a list of the Lepidoptera of the New Forest see Appendix IV.

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[1] The Forest would afford a good field for deciding the controversy as to whether our tame pigs are descended from the European Wild Boar. (See Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1861, p. 264; and Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Third Series, vol. ix. p. 415.) Certain it is that here are some breeds distinct in their markings. I must not, too, forget to mention Coronella lævis (Boie), which is found in the Forest, as also in Dorsetshire and Kent. This is the Coronella austriaca of Laurenti, and afterwards the Coluber lævis of Lacépede. It might be mistaken for the common viper (Pelias berus), but differs in not being venomous, as also from the ringed snake (Natrix torquata) in having a fang at the hinder extremity of its jaws, the peculiarity of the genus Coronella. It feeds on lizards, which its fang enables it to hold; drinks a great deal of water; and Dr. Glinther, of the British Museum, to whom I am indebted for the above information, tells me that it crawls up the furze and low bushes to lick the rain off the leaves. For a list of the Lepidoptera of the New Forest see Appendix IV.

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