I have just started reading "Barrow's Boys" by Fergus Fleming - about the voyages of exploration sent out by John Barrow, second secretary to the Admiralty from 1803 to 1845. Already several issues relevant to JA at least as far as her naval brothers were concerned have come up - but I could not resist sharing one reference to coppices from 1816.

William Scoresby (Junior) was a phenomenaly successful Whitby whaler (his father is credited with inventing the crows nest). Although slight he was immensely strong and had a fearsome gaze so powerful that he did not understand it himself.

"Once, as an experiment, he decided to outstare the ship's guard dog. The beast, reckoned to be the most savage of its kind, ran back and forth snarling in panic as Scoreseby aproached, before finaly jumping overboard and drowning. The same power enabled him to tame polar bears, which he brought back from the arctic as pets for his friends in Whitby. When at home, and not supervising the blubber vats, he would rescue the same bears from the coppices into which they inevitably escaped. The constabulary cheered, nervously, from a distance."

Unaccountably I missed out polar bears when posting on the wildlife to be found in English coppice woods last month. I do apologise for the omission!