led,
commencing fifteen days before and ending fifteen days after
Midsummer-day, the Forest officers attended within their own walks, and
required all manner of dogs to be kept in at the peril of the owner,
bringing before the verderers any persons found hunting or out of the
highway with a bow or gun, or gathering rushes or bents, or driving swine
or cattle, to the hurt or disquiet of the deer. They were also charged
at all times with the preservation of the vert or underwood, on account
of the shelter and food it afforded the deer.

[Picture: The Tomb of John de Yrall, Forester in Fee, in Newland
Churchyard. Round the sides of the Tomb is this inscription, in old
characters--"Here : lythe : Ion : Wyrall : Forster : of : Fee : the :
whych : dysesyd : on : the : VIII : day : of : September : in : ye :
yeare of oure Lorde : m.cccc.lviii. on : hys : Soule : God : have : Mercy
: Amen."]

By the Act of 1668 it is provided, that, "should His Majesty think fit to
restore the game of deer within the said Forrest, the same shall not
exceed the number of 800 deer of all sorts at any one time;" intimating
that during the Civil War, and the period of the Commonwealth, that
kingly pastime had been discontinued. The same Act directs that "the
owners, tenants, &c., of any of the several lands lying within the bounds
of the Forest may keep any sort of dogs inexpediated to hunt and kill any
beast of chase or other game," except during "the fence month," and "the
time of the winter heyning, viz. from the 11th of November to the 23rd of
April," when all rights of common were to be in abeyance.

Charles Edwin, Esq., "Chief Forester in Fee and Bowbearer," in 1787,
stated to the Commissioners that he claimed by virtue of his office to be
entitled to the right shoulder of all bucks and does killed within the
Forest, and also to ten fee bucks and ten fee does, annually to be there
killed and taken at his own free will and pleasure, with licence to hawk,
hunt, fish, and fowl within the Forest." As bowbearer, it was his duty
"to attend His Majesty with a bow and arrow, and six men clothed in
green, whenever His Majesty shall be pleased to hunt within the said
Forest." Edmund Probyn, Esq., one of the Verderers of the Forest, stated
at the same time, that the number of bucks and does which it contained
could not be ascertained; but it was much understocked, so that the
warrants were sometimes se