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found to contain 60,000 acres, of which it has been
estimated that 48,000 were enclosed private pro-
perty, the remaining 12,000 being unenclosed woods
and wastes.*
Over the whole of this land the Sovereign had
Forestal Rights enabling him to keep on the 12,000
acres of unenclosed lands, an unlimited number of
beasts of the forest, beasts of the chase, and beasts
and fowls of the warren. The beasts of the forest were
the bear, the wolf, the hart, the hind and the hare;
the beasts of the chase were the buck, the doe,
the martin, the fox and the roe; and the beasts and
fowls of the warren, were the coney, the pheasant and
the partridge. The Sovereign could have these beasts
and fowls fed not only upon the 12,000 acres of un-
enclosed lands, but upon the 48,000 acres of enclosed
lands. There is a proclamation still extant of as late a
date as the 2nd Edward VI., directed against the "un-
reasonable hedges and ditches," which prevented the
deer from feeding on enclosed lands.
In exchange and as compensation for the damage
which these animals would necessarily do to the
enclosed lands within the ambit of the Forest, the
owners and occupiers of those lands had, and still have
* As there was no plan shewing the distinction between the waste and
the enclosed land, the open waste is believed to be over estimated by 2000
acres, the careful searches of the Corporation of London having failed to dis-
cover any considerable enclosure before 1851, with the exception of Knighton
Wood, which was the subject of au information by the Attorney General.