in Geography, a large extent of ground covered with trees. The word is formed from the Latin foresta, which first occurs in the capitulars of Charlemagne, and which is itself derived from the German frust, signifying the same thing. Spelman derives it from the Latin foris restat, by reason forests are out of towns. Others derive foresta from feris, that is, Foresta, quod sit tuta statio ferarum, as being a safe station or abode for wild beasts. The Caledonian and Hercynian forests are famous in history. The former was a celebrated retreat of the ancient Picts and Scots; and the latter, in Caesar's time, extended from the borders of Alsacia and Switzerland to Transylvania, being computed at sixty days' journey in length, and nine in breadth. The ancients venerated forests, and imagined that a great part of their gods resided therein. Temples were frequently built in the thickest forests, the gloom and silence of which naturally inspire sentiments of devotion. For a similar reason the Druids made forests the place of their residence, performing sacrifices, instructing youth, and giving laws in their unbragorous recesses.

Law, is defined, by Manwood, a certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and fowls of forest, chase, and warren, to rest and abide under the protection of the king, for his princely delight; bounded with unremovable marks and meres, either known by matter of record or prescription; replenished with wild beasts of venery or chase, with great coverts of vert for the said beasts; and for preservation and continuance whereof, the vert and venison, there are certain particular laws, privileges, and officers. Forests are of such antiquity in England that, excepting the New Forest in Hampshire, erected by William the Conqueror, and Hampton Court, erected by Henry VIII., it is said that there is no record or history which makes any certain mention of their erection, though they are mentioned by several writers and in several of our laws and statutes. Ancient historians tell us that New Forest was raised by the destruction of twenty-two parish churches, and many villages, chapels, and manors, for the space of thirty miles together, which was attended with divers judgments on the posterity of William I. who erected it: for William Rufus was there shot with an arrow, and before him Richard the brother of Henry I.; and Henry, nephew to Robert, the eldest son of the conqueror, was, like Absalom, suspended by the hair of the head in the boughs of the forest.

A forest in the hands of a subject is properly the same thing as a chase, being subject to the common law, and not to the forest laws. But a chase differs from a forest in this, that it is not enclosed, and likewise, that a man may have a chase in another man's ground as well as his own, that is, the liberty of keeping beasts of chase or royal game therein, protected even from the owner of the land, with a power of hunting them thereon.

The manner of erecting a forest is this: Certain commissioners are appointed under the great seal, who view the ground intended for a forest, and fence it round; and this commission being returned into chancery, the king causes it to be proclaimed throughout the country where the land lies, that it is a forest, prohibiting all persons from hunting therein without his leave. Though the king may erect a forest on his own ground and waste, he may not do it on the ground of other persons without their consent; and agreements with them for that purpose ought to be confirmed by parliament.

A forest, strictly speaking, cannot be in the hands of any but the king; for no person except the king has power to grant a commission to be justice in eyre of the forest. Yet, if he grants a forest to a subject, and that on request made in the chancery, such subject and his heirs shall have justices of the forest; in which case the subject has a forest in law.

Forest-Laws, are peculiar laws, different from the common law of England. Before the making of the Charta de Foresta, offences committed therein were punished at the pleasure of the king in the severest manner. By this charter many forests were disforested and stripped of their oppressive privileges, and regulations were made for the government of those which remained; in particular, killing the king's deer was declared to be no longer a capital offence, but only punishable by fine, imprisonment, or abjuration of the realm. Yet even in this charter there were some grievous articles, which the clemency of later princes has since thought fit to alter per assistas forester. And to this day, in trespasses relating to the forest, voluntas repudiatur pro facto; so that if a man be taken hunting a deer, he may be arrested as if he had taken a deer.