<P> Commoners' cattle, ponies and donkeys roam throughout the open heath and much of the woodland, and it is largely their grazing that maintains the open character of the Forest . They are also frequently seen in the Forest villages, where home and shop owners must take care to keep them out of gardens and shops . The New Forest pony is one of the indigenous horse breeds of the British Isles, and is one of the New Forest's most famous attractions--most of the Forest ponies are of this breed, but there are also some Shetlands and their crossbreeds . </P> <P> Cattle are of various breeds, most commonly Galloways and their crossbreeds, but also various other hardy types such as Highlands, Herefords, Dexters, Kerries and British whites . The pigs used for pannage are now of various breeds, but the New Forest was the original home of the Wessex Saddleback, now extinct in Britain . </P> <P> Numerous deer live in the Forest; they are usually rather shy and tend to stay out of sight when people are around, but are surprisingly bold at night, even when a car drives past . Fallow deer (Dama dama) are the most common, followed by roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and red deer (Cervus elephas). There are also smaller populations of the introduced sika deer (Cervus nippon) and muntjac (Muntiacus reevesii). </P> <P> The red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) survived in the Forest until the 1970s--longer than most places in lowland Britain (though it still occurs on The Isle of Wight and the nearby Brownsea Island). It is now fully supplanted in the Forest by the introduced North American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). The European polecat (Mustela putorius) has recolonised the western edge of the Forest in recent years . European otter (Lutra lutra) occurs along watercourses, as well as the introduced American mink (Neovison vison). </P>

Where did the new forest get its name