Various

CONTENTS.

		PAGE
Sporting Diary for the Month		v.
Mr. Henry Hawkins		259
Recollections of Seventy-five Years’ Sport—II		260
In Memoriam—The late Captain J. T. R. Lane Fox		265
Spring Trout and Spring Weather		266
The Towered Bird		268
Hunt “Runners”—IV. (Illustrated)		272
“The Old Horse”		276
Some Novelties in the Laws of Croquet		279
True Fishing Stories		283
A Hundred Years Ago		287
The Borzoi (Illustrated)		289
Some Sport in the Transvaal in 1878		292
A Song of Homage (Verses)		299
Herod Blood		300
The Last of the Bitterns		303
The Spring Horse Shows (Illustrated)		305
The Sportsman’s Library (Illustrated)		317
“Our Van”:—
	Racing	320
	Hunting	323
	Hunting in Yorkshire	327
	American v. English Foxhound Match	329
	Breeding of Thoroughbreds	329
	Polo in the United States	330
	The M.C.C. Cricketers in South Africa	330
	Death of Richard Humphrey	332
	Death of Mr. E. H. Buckland	333
	Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race	334
	Cross-country Racing	336
	Golf	337
	“The Voysey Inheritance” at the Court Theatre	338
Sporting Intelligence		339
With Engraved Portrait of Mr. Henry Hawkins.

Mr. Henry Hawkins.

The subject of our portrait, Mr. Henry Hawkins, of Everdon Hall, near Daventry, was born at Kegworth, Leicestershire, in the year 1876. All his life he has been devoted to field sports of every description, and has played cricket seriously since he first captained the eleven of his preparatory school at the age of ten years. Since 1901 he has played for the county of Northamptonshire, and was one of those selected to play against the Australians in August last; he also plays for M.C.C., Warwickshire Gentlemen, and other clubs.

For some years he went in for racing with no small amount of success, owning Alpha, Hottentot, Bellamina, Stella III., and other well-known steeplechase horses, but he has nothing in training at the present time.

It was in the year 1901 that Mr. Hawkins purchased his pack of harriers from Mr. Horsey, and he has now hunted them at his own expense for more than five seasons over the beautiful vale which surrounds Everdon. In the Pytchley, as in every other country, much depends on the good-will of the farmers, and with the farmers Mr. Hawkins is a great favourite. He is a thorough good all-round sportsman, and is, in fact, immensely popular with every one with whom hunting brings him into contact. He has brought his pack, which consists of thirty couple of hounds, all in the Stud Book, to a fine state of perfection, and has taken the highest honours at Peterborough. Last season they accounted for more than twenty couple of hares, and this year bid fair to exceed the average, for they have been showing most continuous and wonderful sport.

Recollections of Seventy-five Years’ Sport.
II.

I seldom brought home a tired horse or had a fall. My good fortune in the latter respect I attribute much to the practice adopted early in life of riding steadily at fences other than water. Only men without nerve go fast at their fences. One day with the Pytchley, jumping a fence uphill, the ground broke away on the take-off, and my horse fell back on me in the ditch. We had to be dug out. I had the misfortune to lose a very fine horse close to Thorpe Trussels. Jumping quite a small fence, he dropped his hind-legs in a grip on landing and broke his back. I lost another good one (a mare) by a somewhat unusual accident. Alighting on rotten ground over a very ordinary fence, she snapped a fore-leg, and of course had to be destroyed.

One can take liberties with a sensible horse. In a run with the Pytchley one day hounds crossed the Welland, and a man tried to ride over a board footbridge. When he got to the middle one of the planks broke and he and his horse fell into the river. Riding a horse of the sensible sort, I gave him his head to follow; he stepped nicely across the open space, and we had the rest of the run up to Loatland Wood to ourselves.

The Leicestershire farmers were rare good sportsmen. Once during a gallop with Mr. Tailby’s across the oxers near Market Harborough my horse, a young one, fell and broke the curb bit. While I was putting matters to rights a yeoman came up, slipped off his horse, and seizing mine by the head put his own double bridle on it, saying, “Look at my horse, he don’t want a bridle!” Certainly the horse had had enough for one day, but the fact does nothing to qualify the kindly thought that prompted his owner. The man was a tenant of Lord Willoughby de Broke’s; few but a Leicestershire yeoman would have done such a thing. Another anecdote to illustrate the same spirit:—

Riding along the Leicester and Uppingham road to draw the Billesdon Coplow one morning, “Cap.” Tomlin, the rough rider, pulled up and exclaimed, “Look here, gentlemen, you talk about riding; this fence (an ox fence) has been jumped into the road.” “Yes,” said Sir Walter Carew, “it has; and the man who jumped it is close to you.” The yeoman who owned the land, a good friend enough to hunting, made his fences very strong. On hearing who had jumped his ox fence he sent me a message, saying he hoped I would never come within the parish without coming to lunch with him. Most of the Leicestershire farmers gloried in the chase in those days. The enthusiasm of the people for a good horse was shown in a rather unusual way on one occasion. In a gallop up to Gumley Gorse the fox was headed by the foot people. I happened to arrive alone, and they seized my horse and kissed his face!

It is many years ago that our King, then Prince of Wales, while staying at Althorp, came to the meet of the Pytchley at Holmby House. Lord Spencer, thinking the horse His Royal Highness rode was rather too small for the big fences, offered him a nice one of his own, which was graciously accepted. In the course of the run the horse, to Lord Spencer’s horror, came down. The Prince, however, was up in a twinkling, and regaining his saddle was going again well in front, to the great delight of the Northamptonshire farmers.

Lord Cardigan was a very bold rider, and got some heavy falls. In a gallop with Sir Richard Sutton from Walton Holt, I jumped the white locked gate on Gumley Hill, and had the run to myself. Lord Cardigan and Colonel Steel, of the Guards, had very bad falls. Lord Cardigan told me afterwards that the whole front of his body was as black as coal. On another day, near the same place, he had a nasty fall in a ditch, his horse lying on him. Lord William Beresford, seeing his plight, stopped, and called on the Hon. and Rev. Robert Wilson to come and help, shouting, “He is not half a bad fellow, and it would be a pity if he died in a ditch.” They got to work, but Beresford found he could not get hold of Cardigan, and said so. “Pull me out by the nose if you like,” said the victim. The water was trickling over him, and without help it is very probable that he would have been drowned in the ditch.

Apropos of falls, there was a little man with a very wry neck who used to bring some nice horses to hunt in Leicestershire. One day he had a fall, and was stunned. There were plenty of people at hand to help, and one man, who did not know him, took him by the head and began to pull at it in the kindly but mistaken endeavour to straighten his neck. This usage brought the poor man to his senses just in time. “Born so! Born so!” he exclaimed, feebly. Another pull would have broken his neck.

Among the good runs I call to mind are two in which, thanks to my horse, I had the fun all to myself. One was a splendid gallop across the Vale of Dunchurch without a check to ground on Barley Hill in the Pytchley country. I was entirely alone with the pack; and the field were so long coming up that I went home before any one arrived. It was several days before they discovered who it was had been with the hounds.

Another fine run was with the Cottesmore, when the hounds ran their fox without a check to mark him to ground in Horninghold Lordship, quite out of sight of the field. The earth being in the Quorn country, the fox had to be left.

When I lived in the Atherstone country I had a small stick covert at Bitteswell, a very sure find. Anstruther Thomson said I had made it too strong, but I told him it was my business to have a fox and his to get him out. As a matter of fact, foxes never hung there, though they seldom afforded good runs; the old foxes used to lie out in the hedgerows.

I told Jack that he would have better sport if he hunted the country thoroughly. He enquired what I considered would be “hunting it thoroughly,” and on my saying, “Drawing it blank,” he replied that he would draw me blank next season. I said I should be ready for him.

He came once a fortnight—no blanks.

The truth was, I had three earths, one natural and two artificial, and Jack never found out the latter. I always stopped the one most used, and put the others to in the morning. The last day of that season I stopped all three, which rather confused him and his hounds. This covert was very full of rabbits, which were caught in a pitfall, one side of it being wired in. I have known a fox to be caught in it.

One day, when hounds drew my stick covert, I lost my usual good start, as I was looking after the foot people. There was a good scent over the grass, and hounds ran hard, but being on a very fast horse I soon got up to them. Just in front of me a youth was going well till he came to a rough fence with daylight in only one place, where an ash tree had been cut down. His horse slipped on the roots and turned over into the ditch on the other side, heels uppermost. “For goodness sake,” he cried, when I asked him to let me come, “don’t ride over my horse.” There was no help for it; my horse cleared the inverted animal nicely, and I went on with hounds.

The young gentleman, however, thought he had a grievance, and, when the fox was killed, reported me to his uncle.

The uncle was a near neighbour of mine, and a good sportsman. He told me that his nephew over night had been “crabbing” the Atherstone men as the slowest set in all England, and thanked me for what I had done. “He will have a different tale to tell to-night,” he concluded.

In a run with the Pytchley a lady following me had a fall; hounds were running hard, but as she did not get out of the ditch I felt bound to go and help her. As I got near she jumped on to her horse, and I asked what she had been about. She said, “I don’t mind telling you, my hair came off.” She had beautiful hair of her own, and added the plaits which were commonly worn in those days.

In the Northampton race week there was a very early meet with the Pytchley at Cottesbrooke. The same lady came up to me and said, “I reckon you will get a good start this morning.” I said, “Yes, certainly,” and that with the wind where it was we should have to cross the stream, which was unjumpable. There was a bridle-gate in the middle of the ford, and I told her I meant to be in first, and if she was close up would hold the gate open for her. When we reached the gate I looked round; she was there, but without her hat. “Dear me, Mrs. A.,” I said, “What have you done with your hat?” “Lost it following you under that tree; and if this sort of thing goes on I shall soon lose my head,” she responded. The acting master, the Hon. C. Cust, made a turban for her out of his neck wrapper, and she hunted in it the rest of the day. The gate in the ford became blocked, and we had an enjoyable gallop.

If there was nice hunting weather at Assize time there was often difficulty in collecting a grand jury, and the judges threatened to fine us. Going to the meet one morning I fell in with a pompous old neighbour who was on his way to Assizes, and asked him, if my name should be called, to respectfully address the judge, and say that I regretted my non-attendance. “Some domestic affliction, no doubt,” said his lordship, and he passed me over, and fined several others.

One London season I took up a pretty young horse; he was always full of vitality and a pleasant mount in the country, but not suited to Rotten Row, as he used to strike with his fore-feet at other horses cantering towards him and frightened several young ladies. He seemed just the horse for a charger. I offered him to a vet, who had a commission to buy a chestnut horse for an officer, telling him he was more suited to a younger man than myself. He went on nicely for a while, and became the crack horse of the regiment. The day of inspection arrived. As he was passing the general at the head of his troop, with the view of making a proper display on the solemn occasion his rider touched him with the spur. He plunged violently, and hoisting his heels exuberantly, cast his rider at the feet of the general, amid the applause of the assembled multitude.

It was in 1831 that I bought the small pack of pure harriers kept at Shotesham. I hunted them for about twenty-five years at my own expense, and then sold them to the Earl of Albemarle and Colonel Unthank. The latter crossed the lot he purchased with the foxhound, and in my opinion spoilt them. I kept as clear of foxhound blood as I could, having only one or two old bitches from Sir Thomas Boughey all the time I hunted them. They were fast, but close hunters; mine was the silent system, rarely going to halloas, and the hounds were not too closely whipped in; extra work was the cure for unruly ones instead of whipcord. They were a capital working lot, and a good hare had not much chance if I wanted to kill her. The country is flat, consequently the hares made better points than they do where there are hills. They were scarce but stout, as only those that outstripped the greyhounds and lurchers were left alive in the greater part of my country.

At Sexton Wood, a fine covert hired by some farmers for shooting, a fox was constantly seen. One February, when the shooting season was over, I went to look for him. A large field was out, some in scarlet from Suffolk. I was a little chaffed, the men asking what I was going to do with the fox. I said I would make him ask for mercy before sunset, or, if the wind had anything to do with it, perhaps hunt him on to the top of one of their houses. As the wood was full of hares I had the fox driven out by men. He went away directly, but was headed back into the wood. I trotted to the other end at about the pace I thought he would travel, and he broke again near me. I got a good start with him up wind, and ran hard for a mile and a half, when he turned down wind; first check, thirty-five minutes. He ran down the middle ride of Earsham Wood with hares constantly crossing, but not a hound left the line. He crossed the river Waveney into Suffolk, was headed in Flixton Park, and turned back up wind over grass to the Waveney, fox and hounds all swimming the river together, and got into a boathouse. I waited till the field arrived, and they asked me if I had done with their fox. I told them to look in the boathouse, where the fox was hiding in the boat. They wanted me to kill him, but I refused, and had him turned into a coppice close by. After releasing the fox I asked the field to come and see hounds run a hare, as I must kill one to steady them for another day. They told me there was a splendid hare close by, often hunted by Mr. Chaston. As I was some miles out of my own country, I felt a difficulty about hunting her; but as they promised no harm should come of it, I gave way. As we entered the field she ran out at the far end; the hounds settled at once, and killed and ate her in twenty-one minutes. The field were well satisfied. They wanted me to keep some foxhounds, and I said I would if they would promise me foxes, which they failed to do.

I had several first-class gallops after outlying stags, almost always running up to them, but not trying to take them.

You ask about my shooting recollections. I have repeatedly killed 40, 50, and once over 60 couples of snipe on the Langley Marshes, by the side of the River Yare. In August, 1846, with Mr. Everard, of Gosberton, I killed 164 brace of grouse, and on the 27th of that month 103 brace by myself. As regards the match between Mr. Stirling Crawfurd and Mr. Osbaldeston, I “managed” for the former, Sir Richard Sutton performed the same office for the “Squire,” as he was called.

The match came off at Rufford Abbey, between the two Newmarket October meetings. Stirling Crawfurd gave him ten brace of partridges each day, on account of his being somewhat older. They shot two days, changing beats the second day. They tossed for choice of beats, both of which were good, but one not so good as the other. I won the toss and took the worst beat for the first day. Shooting began at eight o’clock, and the men shot till dark. We were beaten by a few brace on the first day, but on the second Crawfurd won the match by several brace to spare. Osbaldeston wanted to shoot it over again for a larger sum, on the condition they changed managers. Crawfurd was to walk all day, and Osbaldeston, if he liked, to ride; no driving. Sir Richard had some of the Duke of Rutland’s keepers, from Derbyshire, and some of his own keepers from Lynford, and his whippers-in from Quorn. He overdid it. I had only the head keeper’s son and walkers off the Rufford estate. Mr. Crawfurd gave the value of the stakes among them.

My pointers were bred from two animals given me when I was at college, by the then Lord Lonsdale, from his and another kennel, crossed with Mr. Moore’s, of Appleby. When I gave them up I sold every dog I had to the late Lord Wilton for £25 apiece.

Harking back to my athletic days when at college, I once jumped Mr. Rhodes, of Trinity, a match over water by the side of Trumpington Road and beat him. I believe, but am not quite sure, that my opponent was the father of the famous Cecil Rhodes.

When at Melton, years ago, Count Hugo Nostitz asked me to jump a match. Six jumps, each to choose three, and go first. If he did not clear it the other not to follow on. First jump both got over. I cleared all of Nostitz’s choosing. My second was the Melton Brook, with mud thrown out on the far side; I cleared brook and mud. Nostitz cleared the brook, but, to save falling back, had to put his arms up to his elbows in the black mud. My third pick was the brook again with a rail in front of it. The late Lord Lonsdale, mischievously inclined, told Nostitz to jump high enough (the worst advice he could give). He cleared the rail well, but alighted up to his armpits in the water.

Once he had rather a bad fall with hounds. We went to help him, as he did not get up, and asked him if he was much hurt. He said, “No, only a little more than usual.” He tried to get up, but could not for a while. He was as charming a young fellow as ever entered the town.

Robert Fellowes.

In Memoriam.
THE LATE CAPTAIN J. T. R. LANE FOX.

A sportsman has been taken from amongst us last month in the person of Captain J. T. R. Lane Fox, the Master of the Bramham Moor Hounds, who could ill be spared; and in whose memory it is fitting that a few words should be said in your pages.

Captain Lane Fox was the second son of the late Mr. George Lane Fox, for many years master of the Bramham Moor pack, whose strong personality gave him a foremost place in Yorkshire and throughout the world of sport, as well as among English country gentlemen. Captain Lane Fox had therefore handed down to him a heritage of no mean character, when he succeeded his father ten years ago.

Having acted as his father’s deputy in the hunting field for the last few seasons of the old Squire’s life, his transition to the mastership came almost as a matter of course, and was universally welcomed by the most loyal set of sportsmen that we are acquainted with. Few such elegant yet determined horsemen are to be found nowadays as was the late Dick Lane Fox (as his familiars delighted to call him). From the day he left Eton and joined the Grenadier Guards, serving in Canada and riding many races and steeplechases there, until, on his retirement from the army, he settled down, on his marriage, in the confines of Bramham Park as his father’s right-hand man, he was the idol of all his friends and neighbours.

Unfortunately, he had experienced a bad fall whilst in Canada, which told upon his health and constitution ever afterwards. Indeed, this would have been the cause of banishing many less ardent sportsmen altogether from the hunting field, yet with the subject of our memoir it was not so. There were times when I have witnessed with admiration the pluck with which he seemed to triumph over his constitutional weakness. It was then a treat to see him go to hounds; such a superb seat, hands, and judgment as his made him conspicuous even in a large hard-riding field like the Bramham, and demonstrated his superb talents as a sportsman. It may well be said of Dick Lane Fox that from old Eton days, when I first enjoyed his friendship, down to the sad event of last month, that he never made an enemy but cemented many a friendship. He had above all a natural aversion to obtrusiveness, which prevented him often from doing himself justice; yet the shrewd, true-hearted Yorkshiremen knew him too well not to appreciate him as a country gentleman as well as a sportsman. He lived to see his eldest son George take his place in the hunting field in a way that he could not fail to be proud of; the veritable likeness of his grandfather; and beyond this, in spite of one defeat, he rejoiced to see him elected as M.P. for the Barkston Division of Yorkshire, after as big a fight as ever aroused the political feelings of that district.

Mrs. Lane Fox was a Milmay, of excellent sporting blood, and a devoted wife, who survives him, so that on both sides of the family the present inheritor of Bramham (one of the finest estates in broad Yorkshire) combines the makings of all that is best in the life of a country gentleman and a sportsman.

Personally I mourn, in conjunction with innumerable others, over the loss of a life-long friend, yet our sadness is tempered by the glad reflection that such an unsullied name, such a bright example, and such an ennobling compeer, should have gone to his rest so peaceably, and have left behind him a splendid well cared-for estate, and a descendant in every way worthy of upholding the fame of Bramham and its famous “25 couple,” and likely to fill yet another niche in the temple of fame amongst Yorkshire worthies.

Borderer.

Spring Trout and Spring Weather.

Surely the spring trout-fisher is the most hopeful of all the sanguine and long-suffering brotherhood! How many bitter disappointments and how much bitter weather is required to convince one spring fly-fisher that he had better defer his attempts at sport till the blizzards are over?

Last spring was no worse than usual, but the feel of that cutting east wind still haunts my dreams, and, worse than all, the trout taken were both fewer and smaller than in the previous July on the same water.

Two days only out of six were really good, and even then the trout, though numerous and lively, averaged but little over the quarter of a pound. Certainly they took the blue upright with a will, and did not require much stalking, and now and then a nice half-pounder gave a really satisfactory bit of sport.

I see by my diary that the “coch y bondu” was almost as successful as the “blue upright,” and that dry-fly fishing was nearly useless so early in the season, though fish could often be seen rising on the smooth glides. Sometimes not a fin could be stirred for hours, so that one had plenty of leisure to note the exceptional beauty of the budding woods, and to listen to all the love-notes of the birds. When sport is lively all these things are only dimly felt, as heightening enjoyment. When trout are sulky, then we feel the difference between the silence and comparative gloom of late summer woods, and the joyous choruses of early spring; and nowhere is this more marked than among the lovely sylvan scenes on the banks of Somerset streams.

Among other advantages, water is generally plentiful and not too clear. In the wild uplands on the borders of the moor the bushes and brambles which line the streams are not yet developed into the impenetrable thickets that bar one’s progress in the summer, and many a spot then unfishable, even with the aid of waders, can now be reached at small cost of scratches.

I must confess that these inner sanctuaries did not yield me many victims, my basket on the day I went up the hills being the lightest of the week, and the fish the smallest.

Nevertheless, I think the Horner Woods stream, near Porlock, a charming spot, and worth another trial; for adverse winds may have been responsible for the poor sport. It is easy, I believe, for the fly-fisher to get leave on this water, and it is within a mile or two of Porlock. I cycled from Washford, the other side of Minehead, and found it a delightful ride. I think all anglers will find a cycle convenient in this district, as roads are fairly good, and distances from stream to stream often considerable. It is rather monotonous to fish one stream continually, and the change of scene and novel exercise heighten one’s pleasure. It also enables the angler to choose more comfortable quarters than might always be obtainable close to the fishing; for a run of a mile or two is of hardly any consequence, and it is not always that such rooms as were secured for us (within the precincts of Cleve Abbey) can be had.

This old ruin is close to the stream, and can be examined by the wandering angler at very little cost either of time or money. It is well worth a visit. Washford is the station, but it is within an easy ride of Minehead, where comfortable rooms and good attendance can always be had, and from whence excursions, by coach and boat, are continually going on to many of the loveliest parts of Somerset and Devon.

One disappointment experienced during this spring visit was perhaps not due to the time of year. A large and deep pool, formed by the stream right down on the seashore, had sometimes yielded capital sport in July, fish being large and plentiful, though very shy. Some shifting of the sands had now greatly reduced its depth, and the trout had almost deserted it, only two half-pounders falling to my flies. Last year several of the fish taken here were ¾ lb. or more, and the novelty of landing good trout (and not sea-trout) on the sands added to the charm. I have only done so once before, and that was hundreds of miles away, at the mouth of Crocket’s celebrated “Skyreburn,” in the north.

As it is possible that this sea-pool may have improved again this spring, I advise any angler who finds himself near to give it a careful trial, especially if there is a strong wind blowing; for this greatly increases one’s chances. Curiously enough, a little black gnat is the best fly here, but it is worth while to try larger flies if weather is rough. I think that many of the mouths of trout-streams might be fished carefully with good effect, the trout being often larger and better fed than those in the stream itself. Probably they often go a little way out to sea, and get shrimps, &c., in certain states of the tide. At the worst it is a pleasant change to cast a long line over broad water, after being somewhat cramped and hampered in a narrow and much bushed stream. It must be remembered that permission is required from the local landowners for these parts of the streams, as well as for the upper waters.

J. Paul Taylor.

The Towered Bird.

For upwards of twenty years it has been asserted that no towered bird has been hit only in the head. It has become quite an article of faith with some people that every towered bird is stifled by wounds or blood in the organs of respiration. Quite lately it has been stated that it has often been said that towering has been caused by a shot on the head, but that this is never the case.

The writer has often fallen into this supposed error himself, and has gone very fully into the subject. It is not only a very interesting question in itself, but one that sportsmen should not be misled about. At the last retriever trials there was reported to be a “towered bird,” and upon the dog being sent for it a field away he found it quickly, but the towered bird rose again and flew away, followed by the keeper’s remark, that it was “a very lively dead bird.”

This shows that not all keepers are aware that towerers are not always dead birds when they fall; for this keeper was surprised when the towerer rose again; but I noticed that the judges were quite satisfied that the escaped partridge was identical with “the towerer.” They did not set the dog to hunt again, but turned their backs on the scene of action, and credited the dog (which happened to win the stake) with the find.

That bird had been hit in the head, not in the lungs, and he towered in consequence. If he had been also wounded in the lungs he would have died at the apex of his flight—they always do. It may be asked how I know this, and my reply must be that I know it from the examination of many towered birds of different kinds. Of course, I make no claim to be telling experienced sportsmen anything they do not know already. I am well aware that very many do know it, because I have gone out of my way to ask them; but I think there is occasion for dealing fully with a subject that has been misunderstood for twenty years.

This being so, I propose to glance, briefly, at the varying behaviour of game when struck in different parts of the body; and this seems to be all the more necessary, as wrong information is sure to cause many a fruitless search, much loss of time, and perhaps some muttered thunder directed against the supposed Ananias who saw the bird tower.

Young shooters are often confident that a towered bird is dead, and can be picked up if looked for long enough. Probably they have read it, and have confirmed the statement with a few observations of their own. The partridge that is struck in the head usually falls at once, whether the shot has actually pierced the brain or not, but this is by no means invariable, as I have suggested above.

The several kinds of towerers behave as follows: A rap on the head from a glancing shot may or may not damage the sight, but if it does not completely stun the bird he will rise up and tower from the place where the shot struck him; his is usually a very strong flight, and he is likely to fly a good way, towering all the time, until the loss of strength forces him to come down; he will not collapse at the apex of his flight, but as he falls continue to beat his wings, more or less slowly, nearly or quite to the ground. When he reaches the earth he may die, or he may sit muffled up in a dazed condition. Generally he can be approached and killed with a stick, but sometimes he will have a blind side and a wideawake one; and it is not difficult to approach him by selecting his dark side. In no case is such a bird likely to fly until his enemy is within a yard or two of him. Often he makes no attempt to save his own life, and many times I have allowed a retriever to pick up such a bird, having the gun ready in case of his blunder. On several occasions, probably not more than three, the towered bird on being disturbed has towered again; but generally if he is able to fly at all he is able to see where he is going to and to get away. Many birds of this kind have no shot in them whatever, as I have proved by post-mortem examination; others have proved the same thing by being as lively as ever upon being approached. Once, a few years ago, when a controversy on this subject raged, X-ray photographs of three towerers were published, but shot pellets could only be traced in two of them, and consequently both sides claimed the victory. It is very likely that laboratory examination never will find a shot pellet in the head of a towerer, but that only proves that when a shot enters the head it is generally enough to bring the bird down at once. It is quite another matter when a shot pellet strikes the head and does not enter. Then the state of towering is frequently instantly produced.

This kind of wound, then, may be recognised by the towering of the bird from the instant it was struck, also by some movement in its wings in descent, and lastly, by its attitude of squatting when found upon the ground.

A bird struck in the lungs or stifled by blood in the windpipe behaves very differently. On receiving the shot it generally, but not always, drops its legs as if they were broken; that will generally prove not to have been the case. Then it flies on, from fifty to five hundred yards, with nothing apparently the matter, except the dropped legs, then it suddenly begins to rise or tower. This towering appears from the shooter’s position in the rear, and far behind, to be straight up, but that is optical deception, caused by the position of the shooter directly in the rear. The angle of elevation is really about the same as that of the head-struck bird, although, as the latter rises from only forty or fifty yards away, his angle of elevation looks more oblique than that of the bird a quarter of a mile away.

The stifled bird rises in spite of the fact that his head does not point upwards like that of a pheasant rising to top the trees. The partridge rises without any appearance of change of angle in his body, and when he reaches the apex he does not turn over backwards, as has been said of him, but starts to fall from the position of ordinary horizontal flight. You will generally find him dead upon his back, but the reason of this is that the resistance of his outstretched wings in falling turns him over, and they cease to resist the air when he is on his back. It is a case of movement in the direction of least resistance.

A bird which is brought down instantly by a shot in the head generally jumps about or flaps his wings when on the ground; one would think that he could not do this if he was entirely unconscious, but if he has any degree of consciousness the head-struck towerer must have very much more, just as the stifling bird has, so there must be many degrees of semiconsciousness in wounded partridges.

It very often happens that the most experienced will mistake the dead bird’s fall for that of a runner, and a runner’s for that of a dead bird, but the latter is less frequent. The runner generally flaps a wing as he falls, shows the white of the other one and holds his head up; but all these signs taken together do not prove him to be a runner, because he may have had a lung shot as well, and then he will die upon the ground. Again, a runner may deceive in the other way, he will sometimes fall as if unconscious and then recover and run away. The runner which is just wing-tipped and can fly a long way, sinking slightly until he touches the ground, will not fly again, but generally proves to be a very strong pedestrian indeed.

Several different kinds of hits cause birds to drop their legs instantly, and I fancy that when this happens they are always found where they fall, near or far. The most common of these is the lung-shot bird, then there is the back-broken bird, which does the same, and may also be known by the wobble of his flight—an up-and-down movement, like a boat in a heavy sea. Then there is the leg-broken bird which is likely enough to fly again, but not to run, that day at least. A broken-legged bird generally only has one leg down, whereas a dead bird generally drops both, no matter how far he is to fly before he dies. I think a bird very seldom bleeds to death from a shot wound in the neck vein, but probably this must happen sometimes. I am inclined to think that when the only wound is in the blood-vessels of the neck the bird would fly so far, losing blood all the way; that when he was picked up the cause of death would not be recognised, and I think this is the reason why this kind of wound is so seldom seen. It does not follow that it infrequently occurs.

A shot which breaks the spinal cord is as instantaneous in effect as one which enters the brain, and brings the bird down at once, but not with what is called a broken neck, for I never saw a broken neck in grouse, partridge, or pheasant, unless the keepers had wilfully done it in order to kill a wounded bird. It is a very bad plan to kill any game this way, and especially grouse, for without the bone of the neck to suspend them on the stick the weight often causes the body to drop and be lost in the heather. The skin alone is not strong enough to carry, at any rate, the young birds, especially when boys drag their feet and bodies through the tall heather.

It has been said that the reason partridges “tower” is that they are obliged to lift their heads upwards in order to get their breath, and that their bodies follow where their heads point. This can hardly be the reason, because we have two kinds of “towerers” to deal with, and besides, many a blackcock on taking wing and going away horizontally, nevertheless holds up his head and looks at his disturber over his back, but he does not go upwards in consequence. I do not believe that the upward flight is caused either by any rudder-like action of the tail, although that is, perhaps, possible.

Probably the wings are so set by Nature that their beats not only counteract gravity, but something more than this, and it possibly requires the will of the bird in steering to make him keep a horizontal course. The concave undersurface offers more resistance to the air than the upper convex surface. Hitherto I have considered that this arrangement was meant to negative gravity when the bird was urging its forward course, but when one remembers that young birds with half the power of flight of the old ones nevertheless can rise quite easily, and seem to maintain a horizontal course quite comfortably—that is, their inferior wings in ordinary up-and-down beats are equal to the resistance of gravity—consequently, it appears almost certain that the ordinary beats of better wings are much more than equal to the resisting of gravity. Or, in other words, if partridges in a state of health did not wilfully hug the ground they would rise up like “towered” birds.

I wonder whether this is the reason that day birds (which appear to migrate in their sleep, and certainly cannot travel by night at any other time than when the instinct is upon them) migrate at great altitudes. That is to say, whether they go up because they cannot help it. If so, there would be a certain altitude for each kind of bird where the wing beats influence, on the more rarified air, in sending the bird up, and the lessened power of gravity, would become equal, and at that altitude the bird would travel forward without the will being called into request to keep a horizontal course. Balloonists tell us that at great heights birds thrown out fall like stones, so that there must be an altitude where ordinary wing action ceases to overcome gravity. In any case the partridge goes upward, whether either head or lungs deprive him of part of his senses, probably of all the sense of direction except that one of keel downwards, that no bird ever seems to lose as long as he is alive.

Another reason for believing that the natural up-and-down wing beats would take any healthy bird upwards as well as forwards is to be found in the necessity of the moult. If the full wing beats only kept the horizontal course then it would probably happen that the loss of a single flight feather would have the effect that gravity would gradually overcome the horizontal tendency and pull the bird downwards; but that does not appear to be true, and this is additional reason for believing that the up-and-down wing beats with a horizontal keel much more than overcome gravity, and that consequently when a bird cannot direct its own course it goes upwards, because it is built to do so, and to overcome the downward drag of gravity by the mere up-and-down wing action and a level “keel.”

There are few more picturesque hunting scenes than the country around the Cotswold Hills in the fair county of Worcestershire, which is hunted by Mr. Charles McNeill and his famous pack of Belvoir-bred bitches. This Eden of foxhunting is a much sought after possession, wild and rugged with variety of scene on hill and dale, pasture and woodland. It has often been said that farmers are the backbone of foxhunting, and these Worcestershire sportsmen, bred and born to it, are a community whose fame for staunchness to sport is known far and wide. The majority of them, or their sons, ride to hounds, and wire is practically unknown in their country, whilst foxes are preserved as they ought to be, the best of good feeling prevailing between sport and agriculture. All the same, we did not expect to find a farmer in the capacity of runner to the hunt.

Many countries are going begging for a master, but not so the North Cotswold, which has been so successfully presided over by Mr. Charles McNeill for the past five seasons, the announcement of whose retirement was received with universal regret. When it became known there was a vacancy for next season, twenty-two applicants for the mastership came before the Hunt Committee; showing how hunting men appreciated a community of farmers who plump solid for sport. Sir John Hume Campbell is to be congratulated that he has been chosen to succeed Mr. McNeill.

Butler, the runner to the Hunt, wearing the cap and scarlet coat of office, is a typical Worcestershire dairy farmer. Born in the Heythrop country close by, he has followed the hounds on foot for the past twenty years, which occupies the reign of three masterships—Mr. Algernon Rushout, Captain Cyril Stacey and Mr. Charles McNeill. Before that time he had five years in the saddle making young horses, “hunting oftener than his master did,” as he put it, and a coachman’s place for six months in the heart of Birmingham was the last straw that compelled him to give up domestic service, and take to the wild, free life of a runner, with farming as a mainstay. On a hunting morning Butler is up before daybreak to get his cows milked, pigs and poultry attended to, so that the institution of a bicycle to ride the long distances to and from covert has been a great saving of time and exertion.

Our first sight of the North Cotswold Hunt in the field was at a picturesque fixture, Cheevering Green, in the hill district, and there we made Butler’s acquaintance when he stood holding open the gate as horsemen drew up from far and near. A middle-aged man, with a dash of grey in his side whiskers, and keen, penetrating brown eyes, foxhunting is written in every line of a face evidently intended by Nature for a hunting cap. Sporting the primrose collar of the Hunt, and the coronet on his button dating back to Lord Coventry’s mastership, Butler, with his sturdy black and white terrier, makes a pleasing adjunct to a Hunt which is appointed in Leicestershire style. There is no gainsaying the fact that the countryside appreciates a Hunt that is well found in all departments, and a scarlet coat is still a passport which will admit its wearer where others would be less welcome. It was the late Duke of Beaufort who used to say that every man who goes hunting ought to pay the chase the compliment by putting on his best clothes, even if it be his Sunday suit. Though the North Cotswold is a Hunt far distant from Leicestershire, yet Mr. McNeill has aimed at perfection in every department, and by doing so won everybody’s gratitude; for, after all, the pomp and pageantry of the chase tends to its popularity in a marked degree, which more sterling qualities can hardly boast. When the Master-huntsman rode up in the middle of his pack of seventeen and a half couple of bitches there was a cheery word all round, and expectancy which preludes a good day’s sport. As usual, the Hunt runner had a quiet word for the ear of the Master, news of an outlying fox which a neighbouring farmer had viewed every morning for the last week. These North Cotswold bitches, for Mr. McNeill has no doghounds in his pack, have done well this season, killing seventy-two foxes up to the middle of January, in a country that is fourteen miles long and eight miles wide in the middle, being a good deal less top and bottom. All Belvoir in colour and type, they are triumphs of breeding, proving their worth by winning prizes on the flags at Peterborough, and golden opinions in the field, where they are remarkable for tongue and drive, a pack that mean catching their fox at the end of a gallop. Mr. McNeill is a Leicestershire man, who acquired the greater part of his skill as a huntsman studying the methods of Tom Firr, and he is as quick as lightning, inspiring hounds and followers with confidence.

For the first draw we commenced hill-climbing to the larch plantations up above, an experience that made one appreciate the sagacity of a well-trained hunter.

These hill districts must require a considerable amount of stopping before a day’s hunting, but it is not a duty now performed by the runner. Butler’s mission is to bolt the foxes when they get to ground, and for this he receives half-a-crown on every successful occasion. Years ago he carried a big, white buck-ferret, and worked him on a line when foxes sought the shelter of stone drains. Unfortunately, the ferret came to an untimely end; making a hole in the bag in which he was being conveyed home one wet night, he escaped and, perishing of cold, was found dead next morning.

From the hill-top we were rewarded with a beautiful view of a far-stretching panorama of country in the vale beneath, and quickly the sonorous music of the big-framed bitches lent enchantment to the scene. A second or two later the whipper-in’s silver whistle was ringing out the glad “Gone away,” and Butler, with a smile of satisfaction on his face, was holding up his cap; there were no confusing halloas. Though the North Cotswold country is anything but a good scenting one, except when there is a bite of east in the wind, the bitches rattled their fox out of covert, and keeping his head up wind as they slipped down into the vale, spread-eagled their field in a hunt of thirty minutes to the Croome country on the opposite hillside. It was a ride full of new experiences, giving us, alas, but a distant view of the Master and hounds as they skimmed over the stone walls that divide the seventy-acre pastures. A rain-cloud blotted us out at the finish, enveloping the hillside in a dense wall of fog, robbing the pack at a critical moment of well-earned blood.

WITH THE NORTH COTSWOLD.

Stone-wall jumping is a characteristic of the North Cotswold country, and it is surprising how well hounds’ legs and feet stand the trial, proving the worth of good bone and breeding, which, like first-class machinery, can go at the highest pressure and last. In the vale there is a beautiful line of grass with upstanding fences, equal to anything to be found in Leicestershire, so that a hunt is seen under all sorts of conditions, and a pack that can do well here is fit for any country.

Talking of runs brings up a wealth of reminiscences, for it is a district in which the keenest interest is taken in the doings of hounds by the non-hunting fraternity, who are sportsmen to the very core. To set the runner and his friends talking hunting is like putting a match to gunpowder, and two brilliant bursts we noted down would make the fortune of a season’s sport. Finding a fox near Hyatt’s Spinney, the bitches, with tuneful chorus, drove him along into the open country of large acred fields surrounded by stone walls. There was a burning scent, and so good was the pace that hounds could keep their fox travelling up wind, whilst Mr. McNeill was viewing nearly the whole of the journey in a hunt of twenty minutes.

It was a regular Belvoir burst, and the pilot had to go straight in the race for his life, losing no time over the walls, he ran up the middle of each field in a desperate effort to gain on his pursuers. Such a high state of tension could not last for long, and the huntsman at last saw the fox miss his footing at a stone wall and fall back from distress. Though the mistake only made a matter of a few seconds, it cost a gallant fox his life, for before he could clear in a second attempt, a bitch called Housemaid dashed up, and seizing hold of his brush, pulled him back, but herself went over the wall, where she lay, knocked out. An electrifying cheer from the master put a finish to the fastest burst of this season, under the wall near Springhill.

Another good gallop this season, both from a thruster’s point of view as well as the huntsman’s, was from Gallipot Gorse in the Vale. An old customer, who had on several occasions led the pack a dance, always to save his brush by getting to ground, was not so fortunate on this day.

Getting away close at him, they drove along to Toddington without touching a cover, and running by Worrington Village they crossed the new railway below Laverton. It was evident to those with hounds that the pilot meant the earths on the hillside in Burrill Wood, but two fields from that point the pack suddenly viewed their fox. Up went their hackles, and giving utterance to that cry of delight which proclaims the death-knell, their language seemed to convey its meaning to the hunted one. A curious incident occurred at the finish, which was witnessed by several members of the Hunt. In the last field, a grass one, when this gallant fox knew the end had come, he turned round and met the pack with his hackles up, and made the best fight he could, a game old warrior, indeed. With gleaming ivories shining defiantly, he died facing the foe, his teeth meeting in a death-grip directly the leading hound seized him. So good a fox was honoured with full funeral rites, all wanting a bit of him, and the Master would not have been half sorry if he had just managed to beat them at the finish.

When it comes to dislodging a fox, Butler is not the first man with the spade, for the staff has one better in Padison, the first whip, who is determined, in the saddle or out of it. Where there is any chance of handling a fox he goes to work with the fire and dash of a fox terrier, stripping to his shirt in the effort to get under ground. The kennel huntsman is old Dan Reid, who looks quite classic in appearance, riding a long-tailed black thoroughbred; and being of Irish extraction, he has the dry humour of that race. On one occasion when they were out a badger, some one remarked that Mr. Brock was scratching in faster than they were digging him out. Dan replied: “No, but he’s not, for I’ve put a tarrier dog in to keep him amused.”

One story more about the runner and we have done, for there is always chaff flying about with the wheat, and this belongs to the lighter quality. After a mark to ground in a drain, the runner was left with instructions to get the fox out, whilst hounds went on to draw elsewhere. Unfortunately, it occurred to him to give the neighbouring villagers a little entertainment on his own, and soon tremendous holloaing was heard in the distance. To the master’s horror he saw a crowd of village women round a red-coated figure who was wheeling a barrow, in which was a cider barrel containing the unfortunate fox in a bag. All the party were halloaing, delighted at the prospect of making a Roman holiday of the arch enemy. It was a moment when the Master showed his royal displeasure, and the fox was at once enlarged, such a mistake never happening again.

“The Old Horse.”

Yes, taken all round, he was, without doubt, the best horse I ever owned. Good at every kind of fence; bold, yet clever as a cat; never sick or sorry after the hardest day; and nothing too big for him. Oh, yes, I had a few falls off him. For myself, I have always thought the horses that never fall rather mythical animals. It has always seemed to me that the hunter of whom the fond owner proudly says: “He doesn’t know how to fall,” can scarcely know how to jump. For a horse that can cross a difficult country without sometimes making a mistake must really be somewhat uninteresting, like the good people who always do and say the absolutely correct thing.

That is his picture just above the mantel-piece. Made all over like a hunter; blood, bone—and look at his girth. Ewe-necked? Just a trifle; but he put on a lot of muscle there after the picture was done, and I have noticed that a horse with that formation, or fault, is often a real stayer.

Perhaps so; those good bits of the past always look a good deal brighter than when they made our present; but still, I will insist that the old horse—he will always be “the old horse” to me—was the very best I ever rode. He had a little temper; but, then, the best horses and men have that—and women? rather!—and when they are, all through, the right sort, and generous, it improves them. And the old horse was generous! Why, if he had been a man, I always thought he would have made an ideal one. It is just ten years ago to-night since I lost him. Bless me! how time does go. I had returned, well pleased, after a good day’s hunting. We had had one of those real old-fashioned sporting runs in which hounds hunt steadily on, though nothing very brilliant in the way of pace occurs. I had dined, my coffee had been slowly sipped, my cigar had been under way some fifteen minutes, and was being enjoyed with that feeling of extraordinary contentment which a long day in the open air gives to the sportsman. I had tried several favourite books, and found all impossible, as usual after a hard day’s hunting; Baily’s had just dropped from my hand, and I had given way to a reverie on the performances of my friends and myself during the day. The wind had been rising gradually, and now blew in strong and fitful gusts, and again, with faint moaning “sough” through the trees. I must have been dozing; but a tap at the door suddenly roused me, and Stablem entered the room and said: “Please sir, the old ’oss ain’t nearly so well to-night.” I was alert then. The old horse! He had not been well for some time; indeed, latterly, he had been failing fast. I had bought him as a four-year-old, and had ridden him for twelve seasons, but only two or three days at the beginning of this. He had suddenly seemed to lose all his form, and got listless, and then he became, all at once—old. He had since been given only gentle exercise, and passed his time in his box; and the “vet.” said he could not do very much for him. So, very sadly, I rose and followed my man to the stables. The old horse was lying curled up in a corner, more in the way one sees a dog lie. He was moaning, in a low, crooning key, which to me seemed terribly human. When I spoke to him he raised his head and tried to prick his ears. I stroked his muzzle and looked into his eye, once so prominent and bright, now so sunk and dull. Yet I felt he was glad to see me. Ah, he and I had ever been on the best of terms. Other friends had sometimes been far from true. We had found them—those whom we had trusted—mean, and not running straight; but the old horse, he had ever been the same—brave, generous, and cheery. He stretched himself out, and lay stiff and flat. Poor fellow! He looked so small and “gone”; his once rich coat, a mahogany chestnut, was dry and colourless. He was the mere shadow of his former self—the slashing, sixteen-hand hunter had shrunk to this.

A hundred memories rushed through my brain of the halcyon days he and I had spent together. The best runs I had ever ridden had been on his back. The longest day had never been too long for him. Of course, you know he was thoroughbred, and up to fourteen stone, and I ride only a little over twelve, and how game he was! He only refused once, and we found there was a great quarry hole behind that fence! He was always so flippant and free, and now—and the thought struck me like a knife—he would never hunt again.

In perfect health the thought seldom occurs to us that we may never do this or that thing again; never again see some loved face, nor hear our friends’ cheery chaff, nor again gaze on some familiar scene. If we could know, how miserable we should be long before our misery comes. So it was with the old horse and me, I had ridden him so long that I somehow seemed to think I should go on riding him. Nothing much had ever happened him; a few slight cuts, but nothing serious, in all the years we had been together. A fine feeder, he had gone on like clockwork; but, at last, the wheels had run down; and I realised, with a grief that some may consider out of place when only a horse is the object, that our friendship was being severed. It seemed so strange that we should part; we who had only parted in our falls; we who had galloped through so many brilliant bursts and struggled on to the end of so many long runs. It was hard indeed; but the very strangeness of it seemed greater than my grief. I had never known how fond I was of the old horse.

To watch a dumb animal die is, in one sense at least, more pathetic than in the case of a human being. In a way it seemed harder, more cruel, than if a man lay dying, for then there would be some consciousness of the coming change or end of things; and, if not, humanity has all along been educated for this inevitable termination. This is the looked-for goal, which lies—always far off, of course, but still ever there—at the further side of life; a something to be seldom thought or spoken of. But the old horse did not know these things. He did not know that life was slipping from him. The future, at any rate, had no terrors for him, and the past brought no remorse. He was even hardly unhappy in the present; and of pain he had little or none. With him it was almost an euthanasia. If he thought at all, it was probably of finer and happier hunting grounds than any he had ever seen; fields that he would cross without tiring, and where “the going” was all grass and no plough. Perhaps he dreamt of this as he feebly neighed. I hoped he did. I hoped that, in some vague, mysterious fashion, the old horse felt that he was going to be at rest. For surely one who had been so dear to me could never be allowed to die—to go out—unaware like that he was going to something better? And, as I watched him, I thought that he was one of the few hunters who never seemed to have “bad days.” Poor fellow! What pleasure I owed him! For what pleasure in life is there to be compared to that which we owe to our hunters? And this union, wherein lay so many exquisite memories, was to be dissolved. I would still have the memories, but the old horse was going. He even now seemed suddenly to get further away from me. A stupor had fallen on him, and, once or twice, I fancied that he thought he was galloping hard in the same field as the flying pack. I hoped he did, for it seemed good and right that he should be there in spirit, as he passed away from me. A few minutes more and I was alone, for the old horse had gone.

Hugh Henry.

Some Novelties in the Laws of Croquet.

The Committee of the Croquet Association metaphorically, at any rate, do not let the grass grow under their feet, and the new edition of the “Laws of Croquet,” recently issued by the governing body of the game, will be studied with interest by the ever-increasing army of croquet players.

It was certainly a good move on the part of the members of the Croquet Association in January, 1905, when the Associates vested the authority to alter and add to the laws of the game in the hands of the Committee of the Association, instead of leaving reform, as before, to the hurry and disorder of a general meeting of the Association.

On January 26th and February 8th last, the Committee for the first time exercised their legislative authority, and in accordance with Rule xxi. several alterations in and additions to the laws of croquet were passed by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, the necessary quorum of sixteen being present.

Perhaps one of the most important matters is the alteration to Law 8, which now reads: “In commencing, each ball shall in turn be placed on the central line of the ground within three feet of the spot marked A in the diagram of the setting.”

The central line of the ground is, of course, an imaginary straight line passing through both pegs and extending to the boundary, and the spot marked A is on the boundary immediately behind the winning peg.

Now this appears to be a great improvement, for the old method of starting the game with the balls a foot in front of the first hoop was not satisfactory. It required a great effort of clumsiness for a player not to run his first hoop to start with, although many a good player has been “had” once at least over the tricky opening credited to the fertile mind of Mr. Eveleigh, which consisted in playing one’s ball back into the first hoop, so that the following player was compelled to take croquet before running the hoop.

A great merit of the new starting point is that it will do away with the wear and tear of the ground in front of the first hoop, and the holes and “rabbit-scrapes” which have disfigured the ground in front of the first hoop should be things of the past. Moreover, the hoop itself used to suffer damage from the attacks made upon it at the point-blank range of a foot (and frequently less) not only by the ball, but too often by the mallet of an impetuous player.

It will be very interesting to see what openings will be adopted by the experts under the altered conditions, and at all events the start of the game is likely to be more interesting than before, and for the makers of breaks there is the likelihood of occasionally including another point. But obviously in the case of very moderate players, the game might be considerably prolonged by this method of beginning the game.

According to the laws for 1906, however, there is no need for moderate players to play the full and most arduous setting, for Law 6 authorises two shorter settings, which may be used at discretion; and these should be most welcome to mediocre players, and in fact to all who would like to shorten the game. With the standard setting, the game of course consists of fourteen points for each ball.

DIAGRAM No. 3.

DIAGRAM No. 4.
(From the “Laws of Croquet.”)

A modification which has now been made optional is to play with this same setting, but after the fourth hoop has been made, instead of going down “the ladies’ mile,” through the two hoops in the middle, the new plan is to take the turning peg next, and then take the penultimate and rover hoops up to the winning peg as usual. Now here is a pretty little game of just eight points per ball, every hoop once and each peg once. The rough diagram, No. 3, will explain itself.

But the most interesting short setting is, to our mind, the one with no turning peg, and the winning peg in the middle of the ground.

As will be seen from diagram No. 4, on the opposite page, this setting entails the shifting of the penultimate and rover hoops farther apart from one another, each of them being about three and a half yards distant from the spots which under the standard setting would be occupied by the two pegs. The game here is as usual until after the fourth hoop has been run, and then the player has to come up through the penultimate and rover hoops, and afterwards back to the winning peg in the middle of the ground. Here there are only seven points to be made by each ball, and the presence of the winning peg in the middle of the ground seems to us an excellent idea, because not only will it require some skill on the part of the players to avoid embarrassment from this in the course of a break, since the peg will be exactly where the middle ball should be found in the academic four-ball break, but also the finish of the game has to take place in the middle of the ground. Now this is likely to make a great difference to the game.

To the ordinary player the end of the game is about the most difficult part of it. Obviously no one has had so much practice in finishing a game of croquet as he has in beginning it, for although two people begin a game, only one finishes it, and it is by no means easy to win the game even when you have got both balls at the rover stage or hoop, with the winning peg at the end of the ground. With the winning peg in the middle of the ground, it will be more important than ever that a player should win the game as soon as ever he can, without any delay in the centre of the ground in the middle of his adversary’s game.

The Croquet Association Gazette draws attention to three great advantages offered by these short settings:—

(1) They will enable managers of tournaments to arrange for the “best of three” games to be played in cases where, with a longer setting, there would be time for single games only. The final could be either the best of five (short setting) or best of three (long setting.)

(2) The monotony of long breaks will be abolished.

(3) The shorter the game the larger the proportion of start to finish—the two most interesting periods of the game.

One of the worst features of the game of croquet as practised at tournaments of late years has been the practice of close wiring, by leaving the next player stuck in the middle of a hoop or up against the wire. A usual finish up to a break was to leave the next player tight in the blue hoop after the player had himself run it, and many a first-rate player has been beaten by 26 points without ever getting an open shot throughout the game. Last season some of the leading players, notably Mr. Arthur Gilbey, at Swakeleys, adopted a system which should defeat the methods of the close wirer, and this system has now been incorporated in the laws of the game. The new law reads as follows:—

“If at the commencement of a turn the striker’s ball is “wired” from all the other balls, either through the interposition or interference of any hoop or peg, such ball being distant less than one yard from that hoop or peg and having been placed there by the stroke of an adversary, the striker may at his option lift his ball and play it from any spot within a yard of where it lies. A ball is “wired” when (1) any part of it cannot be driven in a straight line towards every part of the ball aimed at; or (2) a wire or peg so interferes with the backward swing of the mallet that the striker cannot freely aim at every part of the ball.”

The Croquet Association Gazette points out four drawbacks to this law, viz., two measurements, lifting the ball, and the problem of deciding whether a ball be wired or not.

Also the definition of wiring demands careful attention. The whole target presented by the ball must be open; if the left-hand edge of the striker’s ball cannot be driven in a straight line so as to hit the right-hand edge of the object ball then the balls are wired. So this law gives the open shot to everyone who is not wired by his own mallet or that of his partner, should his ball be placed within three feet of a hoop or peg by an adversary. There still remains the chance of safely “masking” the balls from the shot of an opponent who is left in the open, and the leading players were quite equal to doing this last season. But “masking” the balls requires considerable ability, whilst any fool could jam an adversary’s ball in a hoop.

The law with regard to “taking off” without moving both balls has now been remodelled, and now that part of Law 17 reads: “In so doing (i.e., taking off) he must move or shake each ball perceptibly, should he fail to do so the balls are to remain where they lie or be replaced at the option of the striker, and the turn ceases. The striker, if challenged, must be prepared to assert definitely that he saw both balls move or shake, and in default of such assertion the balls shall not be considered to have been perceptibly moved or shaken. If the two balls do not touch before and in the act of taking croquet the adversary may require the stroke to be played again. In taking croquet the striker’s ball shall not be in contact with more than one ball.”

The result of this law is that this offence is no longer regarded as a foul stroke, but is treated much the same as the offence of driving one of the balls over the boundary in a croquet stroke; except that in the case of not moving the balls the offender can elect whether he will replace the balls as they were before the stroke was made, or whether he will leave them where they are at the end of the stroke.

It is quite right to make the penalty for non-moving or shaking less severe than formerly, for since it must generally be a matter of rather close observation to determine whether a ball has moved or no, and since the striker is obviously in the best position to observe this, it was difficult enough for some strikers to confess that they had not moved the ball, and it is to be hoped that the lightening of the punishment may lead to more pleas of guilty.

Of a verity there seems to be no end to the laws of croquet, and it requires quite a gifted head to carry them all, with their various alterations and additions; and the edition of the “Laws of Croquet” for 1906 is likely to revive the industry of the painstaking man who learns up the laws by heart as well as he can, and always carries a copy of the book in his pocket with a view to winning an occasional bet over some well-engineered discussion about the laws of croquet.

An interesting feature of the plans of the Croquet Association for next season is that the Committee have decided to use composition balls in all Association tournaments instead of wood, which up to this year has been the standard ball for tournaments.

Certainly the composition balls are in every way more satisfactory than wood: they are absolutely accurate as to shape, weight and size, the colour does not come off, and they are impervious to wet, whilst they are more durable and cleaner in all weathers than the wooden balls. Composition balls are, moreover, easier for running hoops than are those made of wood, they have greater resiliency and more drive about them; on the other hand, their resiliency is so great that it is very difficult to “roll up” two balls together across the ground. But since this rolling-up is nine times out of ten a foul stroke, to the extent that the mallet has more than one contact with the ball during the stroke, the more the roll-up is discouraged the better for the game. It is a counsel of perfection, but we know some players who go so far as to say that under favourable conditions the composition balls make the game of croquet too easy.

Quid.

True Fishing Stories.

Some years ago an acquaintance of mine solemnly assured me that he had once, when fly-fishing for trout, hooked a rabbit on the bank behind him, and with his forward stroke brought it over his head and dumped it down among the trout he was seeking to capture. Possibly he was using a “hare’s lug,” and let his imagination do the rest. Of course, I was too polite to question the performance. It is surprising what a good fly-rod will stand in this way. Fishing in wooded streams you now and then get very fast in a branch behind, and you do not find it out till the full force of your cast comes into action, and then the tree seems to be almost coming up by the roots, while rod and tackle do not give way, and are not a bit the worse. This reminds me that one day a few years ago I lent my rod for the afternoon to a man, a more or less distant cousin, who had come without one. He was a fisherman of long experience, so I had no misgivings about it. When I came in towards evening I found that he had been unfortunate enough to catch up in a tree and break the top just at the ferrule, and had had it mended by the village joiner. Accidents will happen in the best regulated families, but I did wish he had let the joiner alone. He then proceeded to add insult to injury by telling me that it was my fault for having such a “rotten” rod, and a good deal more in the same strain. I have had worse rods and I have had better ones in my possession, but I had caught a great many trout with it at one time or another, and it was the only one I had with me. No doubt it is a good thing we are not all turned out of the same mould, but had the positions been reversed I am certain that I should have absolutely grovelled abjectly in my desire to avert his wrath and obtain his forgiveness.

But to go back to the rabbit. The nearest approach I ever made to this feat was when on a certain occasion I was fishing just above the town bridge at Marlborough, and my pal was standing on the bridge looking on. I suddenly heard a yell from him, and—well I did not throw him over my head impaled on the hook of a “red quill,” but only a piece of his nose! It was at this very same place, possibly the same day, that I was drawing in a fish of quite a respectable size, when a small boy in the gallery sung out “Whoi don’t cher chuck down the rod and ketch ’old o’ the string?” I daresay the method might have been quite as successful. I know it is not, or was not then, a very attractive spot to be fishing. It is an unsavoury place, but I was there all the same, and some one ate the trout: I did not. Then here is another incident bearing on the subject. When I was at Winchester, alas! many years ago, I was down “Water meads,” and saw a cow tearing along at full tilt, pursued at a distance of about thirty yards by a youth with outstretched arm, and a rod presented horizontally in the direction of the animal, also going for all he was worth, and he looked as if he soon would be worth very little. He had hooked “the coo,” which not unnaturally took to its heels, and he was no doubt anxious to save some of his cast, or haply his fly, or even land the coo. I do not remember how it ended, but possibly in after years he may have related to his sons, who I hope are also Wykehamists, how he once threw a coo over his head with a “Hammond’s guinea rod” into the Itchen!

Many of your readers have probably occasionally hooked a swallow or martin; on the two or three occasions on which this has happened to me the bird has not been hooked in the mouth, but round the neck, the fly forming a running noose on the gut. But I do not think many will have bagged a duck with a fly. It was a large bushy fly, and the wind caught it as I cast, and instead of its falling under the opposite bank, about two yards of gut stood straight up out of the water, and then fell over up stream just in time to meet an old Aylesbury duck with a brood of ducklings paddling down stream. It fell by the side of her, and though 1 tried to pick it up before she got it, she was too quick for me and snapped it up. There was “such a row as never was.” She quacked and splashed, and beat with her wings, and dived and did all she knew. This time I did “chuck down the rod and ketch ’old o’ the string” for fear of breaking my top joint. I hand-played her and landed her, and she was no worse for her adventure, being only just held by the skin of the mouth.

I lately saw a note in the Field about a trout which had been hooked twice in the same day, having got the fly the first time, both flies being found in its mouth. I once came across a good trout rising in a still mill-tail; the wheel was at rest and all the water going round the other way; I rose him and left my fly in his mouth. As I observed that he did not seem to have taken much interest in the proceeding I put another fly on as quickly as I could, cast over him, hooked and landed him, and took both flies out of his mouth. His size, so far as I can remember, would have been somewhere about 1½ lb. Evidently he could have suffered no pain, and there can be little doubt that when the hook gets hold of just the skin of the mouth, which happens the most frequently in fly-fishing, though sometimes painful places are pierced, the fish feels only the resistance and the pull which tells him he has to fight for his life. One would think that a trout of about ¾ lb. could hardly swallow a pebble 2 inches across without, if not pain, at least some inconvenience. Yet it took my fly and appeared fairly healthy. One wonders why or how it came to get such a thing inside it. Last spring I twice caught in a north country river, in the same pool but not on the same day, a trout weighing 6 oz. or 7 oz., with a big stone loach jammed tight down its throat, and the tail sticking out of its mouth. It was quite a question whether the loach could be pulled out without breaking. Yet both of these trout took the fly with a dash, and made a gallant fight in the rather swollen stream, considering their inches. Those who know the Broad Water at Wansford in the East Riding are aware that the field on the west side slopes abruptly down considerably below the level of the water. I was once casting over a rising fish some distance out, and in drawing in for a fresh cast my line had to travel back over the edge of the bank itself, so that the fly might very easily get hung up tight on a snag or plant: this was what I supposed had happened, so I began pulling to see if it would come away without my having to go and release it and so scare the fish, when to my astonishment the line flew off in the direction of the opposite bank. I had actually hooked in the belly a fish lying under the bank, which was played and duly brought into the net.

I one day hooked a fish in Foston Beck, which dived straight into a bed of weeds from which no persuasion could move it. I tried hand-lining, but could do nothing; then an idea occurred to me: I spiked the rod in the ground, reeling up the line till it was just taut without any strain on, and strolled a couple of hundred yards down the bank to where my friend was fishing. I told him what had happened and stayed with him a bit, and then by-and-by returned to my place. Nothing was changed; the line stretched straight from the top ring to the weed as if purposely fastened there. I picked the rod up very carefully, and putting on a sudden strain hauled down stream, when out came the trout before he knew what was up, to be towed over the weeds into the net, and finally the basket.

Foston Beck reminds me of an incident which I would have gone a long way to see, but which I had the good fortune to witness while I was sitting on the bank under a thorn-bush eating sandwiches. I suppose I must have been very quiet, for a kingfisher came and pitched on a twig of the thorn, and remaining there a short time presently quitted it, hovered a moment over the water, pounced down, and came up with a little fish in his bill, just steadied himself on the twig, and then flew off. It was a pretty sight, and one that it is not often given to an angler to see, although he sees many pleasing things which no one else does. And now I must bring my rambling paper to an end; but just one more story first.

Every one knows what a bore it is to have to seem amused at sallies of wit which do not appeal to one, but a bit of unconscious humour from one who would be astonished to be thought funny makes one sometimes want to shout with laughter. On a certain day I was counting the spoil preparatory to going home. I do not think the bag was anything very striking, but there was a long, black, unwholesome fish among the others, which I suggested to the keeper had better be thrown away. “Oh,” said he, “there’s a gentleman there who has come a long way and has not got anything; I think he would be rather glad to have it to take home.” So he took it off and entered into negotiations with the said angler who was taking down his rod close by. I did not hear what went on, but just caught one sentence, viz., “H’m, the gentleman must be an ‘eepi-kewer,’” and he put it in the bag.

Gammel Man.

P.S.—Since writing the foregoing notes there has recurred to my mind another amusing fish story. A friend of mine, he, forsooth, whose nasal organ I hooked on Marlborough Town Bridge, having had a day given him on a very fine stretch of preserved water, killed with dry fly a nice basket of trout from about 1¼ lb. up to 2 lb., which I saw and much admired. The best of these fish he sent to his old father by the hands of a man who had just come home from India, and who, to distinguish him from his brother, was spoken of as Mr. —— from India. They were duly delivered, but with the message that a gentleman had brought some fish from India! Whereupon my friend’s father, who would have greatly appreciated such trout, promptly ordered them to be thrown away. And thrown away they were, to the sore vexation of the successful and dutiful fisherman when he heard thereof.

A Hundred Years Ago.

(FROM THE SPORTING MAGAZINE OF 1806.)
BOXING.
D. Mendoza and H. Lee.

Friday, March 21st, 1806, being appointed for the above pugilists to exhibit themselves in a pitched battle for 50 guineas, the same took place at Grinstead Green, three miles and a half through the town of Bromley in Kent. The combatants met in a 25-feet roped ring, formed on the Green soon after one o’clock, attended by their seconds, Bill Ward and Bill Gibbons for Mendoza, and the Game Chicken and Gulley for Lee.... Current betting in the ring was 3 to 1 on Mendoza....

The battle was continued until the fifty-second round, very much to the disadvantage of Lee, who, however, showed himself game by the very severe beating he had received. In the fifty-third round, which ended the fight, he fell without a blow, and Mendoza’s seconds did not choose to give away a chance as they had done several times in the course of the battle; and the matter being referred to two gentlemen who acted as umpires, they declared Mendoza the winner, after a sharp contest of one hour and ten minutes.

Observations.—In this contest, which it was supposed would be the most hollow thing ever attempted, the spectators were very agreeably surprised. Lee, although he did not act the part of a game man in the strict sense of the word in falling without a blow, yet he was not deficient in skill and resolution so as to disenable him to rouse the admiration of the amateurs. He never had a chance of winning, although he made a very good fight; for the odds, to nearly the end of the contest, were treble against him to what they were at the commencement, and at the end, when Mendoza became weak, they were never less than four to one. He got himself miserably beaten in the former part of the fight by making play, but his seconds did not suffer him so to act at the latter part. He had the advantage in stature and length of arm, and he fought with his left hand extended, constantly sawing. Mendoza had a decided advantage over his opponent in the knowledge of bruising, which the beating Lee received will most fully demonstrate. Dan stopped most admirably, and he seldom hit with his right hand without the desired effect. With his left he sometimes led himself into an error, for he generally hit over his man and left his right side exposed. He showed himself a pleasing fighter, as he always has done, and his fatigue at the end of the fight was no more than momentary, for he was quite fresh after the contest was over, and his only suffering was a blow he had on the left eye and another on the nose, which was broken in a fight many years since.

Another account says the contest between Mendoza and Harry Lee was much more serious to the former than has been generally described. About the thirtieth round the odds changed from five to even betting; and though Lee declared himself compelled at last to give in, on which his seconds advised him to drop without receiving a blow, which decided the battle, Mendoza was so severely beaten that he was immediately put to bed with both eyes closed and his face mangled in a shocking manner.

BORZOI SANDRINGHAM MOSCOW.
Winner of First Prize. Property of Her Majesty Queen Alexandra.
Photo by Dexter & Son.]

It is almost incredible the number of spectators that were present.... The following were the leading amateurs: Lord Albemarle, Lord Sefton, Count Beaujolaise, Sir Watkin W. Wynn, Sir John Shelley, Sir Edm Nagle, Captain Halliday, Mr. Thornhill, General Keppel, Mr. Buxton, Mr. Fletcher Reid.

The Borzoi.

Of the several breeds of foreign dogs that have been introduced into England, the Borzoi has obtained a considerable amount of popularity. It is, however, not more than fifteen years ago that the breed was first seen in any numbers, and was accorded a separate classification in the Stud Book. He is the most aristocratic in appearance of all the canine race, but, although so gracefully and slenderly built, has a most powerful jaw, and is very muscular, as he needs to be, when he is required on occasions to tackle a wolf single-handed.

The Borzoi is the favourite of Royalty. He is to be found in the Imperial kennels of Russia, and also in those of the Grand Dukes and others of high degree, and among the first seen in this country were a brace that were presented, upwards of thirty years ago, to the Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII.), which hounds were occasionally exhibited on the show bench, and were bred from; but as there is no record of their names appearing in the pedigrees of the present generation of Borzois, they and their produce seem to have been lost sight of. Still, now and again in the years which intervened between that period and the time when the breed became firmly established here, a specimen or two then known as the Siberian or Russian wolfhound appeared in the classes confined to foreign dogs, but these were very indifferent representatives of the breed when compared with the beautiful animals that were afterwards imported by her Grace the Duchess of Newcastle, who at the present time owns the largest and most successful kennel that has probably ever been seen out of Russia, or with Alex, who was presented in 1895 to the Princess of Wales (now Queen Alexandra). A more magnificent animal than the Borzoi Alex has scarcely ever been seen.

With the advent of Alex the breed, which has already been recognised by the Kennel Club, and for which a specialist club had been formed to look after its interests some three years before, quickly took a prominent position amongst our show dogs, and now large classes of Borzois are to be seen at all the principal shows; and Her Majesty was successful in winning a first prize in a group of thirty-two at the Crystal Palace, and also at Birmingham, with a young dog bred at the Royal kennels at Sandringham. That the Borzoi has now become thoroughly nationalised in England is proved by the fact that the whole of the animals shown on these occasions were home-bred. In addition to Her Majesty and her Grace the Duchess of Newcastle, Mrs. Borman, of Billericay, has a large kennel of these dogs, and other prominent breeders of them are Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, Mrs. Kilvert, Mrs. E. A. Huth, of Wadhurst, and Miss Robinson, of Tewkesbury. Mr. H. Murphy, of Padiham, also has a few valuable specimens, and so has Mrs. Aitchison, whose kennels are at Wallsend-on-Tyne.

BORZOI PUILAI.
Winner of First and Champion Prizes. The Property of Mrs. Ebsworth.
Photo by Bowden Brothers.]

Although largely used for coursing the wolf in his native land, the Borzoi is only kept as a companion in England. He is useless for coursing the hare, as he is not so fast, nor can he turn so quickly as the greyhound. At work with the wolf, however, the Borzoi has no equal, as he holds on much more tenaciously when he has seized his prey than either greyhound or Scottish deerhound, both of which have been tried in Russia. When wolves are to be coursed, the dogs (generally two or three) are held in slips by a keeper on horseback at the corner of a covert whilst the latter is being drawn by foxhounds. On the wolf breaking covert he is given a start of two hundred yards, when the hounds are slipped, who before they have gone a mile, and sometimes considerably less, are up with their quarry, which they seize on either side by the neck. The wolf is then powerless, and the rider, after dismounting, either muzzles the animal, if it is a large one, or dispatches it with a knife, if it is small and not of any use to be kept for the purpose of practising the young dogs. During the muzzling operation the seasoned dogs keep fast hold of the wolf, but young hounds, when first entered, will sometimes seize the wolf by the back or leg, when they run the chance of being terribly mauled. They, however, soon learn the fact that the only safe place to get hold of is the neck, and that they must not let go their grip till the wolf is muzzled.

An occasional hound can take a wolf single-handed, but it is only the most practised hunters that are allowed to do so. When one dog only is sent in pursuit of the foe, on the latter being caught the two roll over together, but the dog always comes up at the top, and it is quite the exception for the latter to receive any injury. Sometimes, in places where difficulty is expected in finding, bagged wolves are brought into requisition, but the quarry that is disturbed from his native haunts generally shows the best sport. Under any circumstances the pastime is most exhilarating, travelling to the scene of action on the snow at break-neck speed, over hill and dale, and sliding down the sides of miniature mountains on the sledges, the atmosphere so cold that unless the sportsmen are well wrapped up in furs there is a considerable chance of their getting frostbitten.

There are two varieties of the Borzoi, one with flat, the other with rougher coat; but the latter is the favourite, and is certainly the more handsome. Those in the Imperial kennels being chiefly of the rough-coated variety, they are exactly the same in general contour, the only difference being in the texture of coat. A representative of the greyhound tribe, the formation of the Borzoi is characteristic of great speed, endurance, and strength. As already stated, associated with the snake-like head is a most powerful jaw; a perfect specimen has immense depth of chest, but perhaps the most noticeable feature is the power that is to be observed in his loins and quarters. He is a much bigger dog than the greyhound or deerhound. In height he will sometimes measure as much as 31 inches, and Korotai, a well-known winner in the last decade, drew the scale at 110 lbs. The largest dogs are not, however, always the best workers, as those that are an inch or two less in stature are generally more sturdily built.

Colour in the Borzoi is an important item, as it naturally would be in an animal that is made on such graceful lines. On the body white predominates, with patches of orange, fawn, or blue, sparsely distributed, and the hair is soft and silky to the touch. Black-and-tan is an objectionable colour. Others that are self-coloured are also equally objectionable, as also are black markings of any sort. Patches of brindle with white ground, on the other hand, are admissable. The winner at the show of the Imperial Gun Club at Moscow was so marked.

As regards the foot of the Borzoi, opinions appear to differ. We in England prefer the cat foot, the same as that of the greyhound and other sporting dogs, but in Russia many of the chief winners have the hare foot, which is considered in that country to be better adapted for galloping on the snow. The following are some of the other points that are characteristic of the breed: In general appearance he should show a combination of nobility and elegance, and his every movement should be graceful. The head should be very long and snake-like, the skull narrow and flat, but not receding; the muzzle tapering from the eye to the nose, and slightly arched when viewed in profile; the eyes dark hazel in colour, and almond shaped; the ears thin and small, and carried like those of the greyhound; the teeth level (an overshot mouth is a great defect). The neck is somewhat short for a dog of his size, and the chest narrow; but there should be plenty of heart room, as seen by his great depth of brisket; the forelegs straight and rather fine in bone; the back arched, with flanks cut up; the loins muscular, with broad quarters and strong hind-legs; the hocks not quite so much bent nor close to the ground as those of the greyhound; and he has the peculiarity of appearing to be rather higher behind than in front, but this is probably caused by his arched loins.

Before proceeding to describe the pleasant little trip which will furnish the principal subject of the narrative that follows, it may be as well to explain, briefly, the conditions under which I had found my way into the Transvaal and what I was doing there. During 1876 and 1877 the Transvaal Republic had been at war with Sekukuni, and by the close of the former year had become hopelessly bankrupt. The operations against Sekukuni had been the reverse of successful; the Zulus were said to be restless, and a large proportion of the Transvaal Boers declared themselves in favour of annexation by Great Britain. Sir Theophilus Shepstone—“Somsteu” as the Kaffirs named him—went up to Pretoria, as Special Commissioner, in January, 1877; and in March my regiment (the 1st Battalion 13th Light Infantry), with two guns and a small detachment of Royal Engineers, marched up country. A halt was made at Newcastle, pending the result of the negotiations at Pretoria; but eventually we reached the latter place, where the British flag was hoisted on the Queen’s birthday. The march, as a military movement, was uneventful, and the opportunities for sport as a rule scanty. We had some excellent duck shooting near Newcastle, and just beyond Standerton we saw what can no longer be seen, but what those who have seen it can never forget, the annual migration of all kinds of game from the “High Veldt” to the “Bush Veldt.” From as far westward as the eye could reach the great procession kept coming, whilst its head was beyond the horizon in the east. All kinds of antelopes, quaggas, &c., were to be measured not by hundreds or thousands, but by miles. It may here be mentioned that the animal which the Boers call a “quagga”—pronounced “quaaha”—is really Burchell’s zebra. To me it has always seemed a shame to shoot these beautiful creatures, except when scarcity of meat demands the sacrifice.

At first, after our arrival at Pretoria everything was quiet, but very soon it became necessary to send four companies to Utrecht, on the Zulu border, and in the absence of this detachment a party of some 1,500 Boer malcontents assembled, armed, at Pretoria, where they held an indignation meeting under our noses. Our strength was limited to about 350 men, lusty old soldiers indeed, yet a mere handful. Luckily, however, the local military authorities were neither clever enough to understand the danger nor foolish enough to provoke a contest. We had no entrenchments of any sort; our camp was within 300 yards of the town, and probably about ten minutes’ fighting would have sufficed for our extinction. Perhaps the Boers assumed from our attitude of calm indifference that a trap had been set? At all events no trouble ensued, and the assembly dispersed.

Round Pretoria there was very little shooting to be had, but by trekking northwards, to Warm Baths and Nylstroom, in the Waterberg district, some fair sport was met with; and there a party of four of us spent a most enjoyable month.

Meanwhile the 80th Regiment arrived in Natal, and a detachment having been sent up to Utrecht relieved our four companies, which rejoined headquarters at Pretoria, March 28th, 1877. On April 16th, three companies, of which my own was one, marched off to Middelberg and Lydenberg. Sekukuni had broken out once more, and it had been decided to send up an expedition to suppress him. Our three companies were not to go at once to the front, but to afford some protection until an expeditionary force could be assembled. Thus it was that on July 16th, T., W. and myself had the good fortune to start on a trip to the district about the Sabie River, some sixty miles distant from Lydenberg. Operations against Sekukuni were already imminent, and we were lucky in obtaining even a fortnight’s leave under the circumstances. Indeed, it was only three weeks after our return, namely, on August 22nd, that we actually entered upon the campaign.

During our stay at Lydenberg we had been lucky enough to make friends with a Mr. G., of Krugerspost, a British settler, a great sportsman, and a right good fellow. Mr. G. had been in the habit of shooting on the Sabie every season for many years, and upon this occasion very kindly permitted us to join him, he providing everything—waggons, Kaffirs, &c., whilst we merely paid our share of the expenses. Our party consisted of T. and myself, who were already at Lydenberg, and W., who arrived by post-cart from Pretoria the day before we started. In order to economise time the waggons had been sent on three days in advance, but in consequence of a breakdown they had failed to reach their destination, with the result that we caught them up about five miles east of the Spitzkop Goldfields, and about thirty-five from Lydenberg. The waggons were still trekking when we reached them and we continued with them to the outspan about six miles further on. During this last part of the day’s trek W. achieved a reputation as a shot by killing a paauw as it flew overhead about one hundred yards up. W. fired from his horse’s back with an ordinary service Martini-Henry rifle, and the feat was therefore a notable one.

During the next two days we found ourselves rather unprofitably employed in crossing a wide belt of country that had been burned by a party of Boers just before our arrival. We met with lots of spoor of rhino, giraffe, buffalo, &c., but saw nothing except small buck and quaggas, and one troop of hartebeeste. Of these we shot a few, as we wanted meat. During the time we were out on Friday 19th, an old Boer who had attached himself to our party, whilst walking along about a mile from camp, suddenly came upon the fresh spoor of a buffalo, which he proceeded to follow in hopes of a shot. All at once, however, he heard “pooph, pooph” behind him, and in a moment the buffalo had tossed him clean over a small mimosa bush on to another beyond. In the confusion the old man’s rifle went off, and the buffalo, tail on end, sailed away without taking any further notice. The Boer got off without any broken bones; but, as may easily be imagined, not with a whole skin. Mimosa thorns are somewhat retentive, and the descent from that tree, which took some considerable time, was a painful process. Next morning, whilst searching for buffalo, we passed over some of the ground that had been visited the day before in pursuit of the quagga, and found that two carcases had been appropriated by lions, but of the lions themselves we saw nothing, nor did we meet any buffaloes; later, to our great satisfaction, we came upon the fresh spoor of a considerable troop—too late in the day, however, to follow it up.

Starting from camp at daybreak on Sunday, with niggers and dogs, we took up the spoor, and after about two hours reached the spot where a lion had killed a cow buffalo during the night. Jackals or hyenas had had the leavings, and the horns, bones and skin were all that remained. At last, about 10 a.m., the herd was sighted on the other side of a big donga, into which any number of smaller ones ran from both sides. It was a very bad bit of country from every point of view, and the bush in parts was inconveniently thick. However, after a good deal of riding about we got the herd on the move towards the more open veldt—not, indeed until after they had given us a good deal of excitement, sometimes running in view, but more often lost in the bush. Once they had their opportunity, and had they taken advantage of it they might have bagged the whole lot of us, as we crossed a donga in single file not more than a dozen yards from where they were all standing. Having allowed us to cross in safety, the buffalo made off in the opposite direction.

During this time some three or four of the buffalo had fallen before our rifles, and at last out they came across a fine stretch of decently good ground, beyond which was a wet donga with thick bush on the other side. Midway was a small “pan.” I happened to be on the left, and in the best place, with the result that I arrived first over a swell of the ground and saw below me the buffalo in the act of lying down in the pan to cool themselves. My appearance caused a wild commotion, during which, however, I fired one shot off my horse into the back of a big bull just as he was rising, and down he went to my great delight. But I had been very foolish not to dismount: my horse was excited and so was I, with the result that I missed my second barrel. The bull I had hit was struggling below, and just as I was about to get off my horse and give him the coup de grace G. came galloping up. He cried, “don’t finish him, he is quite safe, his back is broken, come on after the others.” I complied, but looking round after I had gone about half a mile I saw my bull on his legs and commencing to make tracks. The donga was only a couple of hundred yards from him, and slowly as he went he was right on the top of it before I came up with him, when he promptly turned to bay. Thirty yards from a wounded buffalo I was discreet enough to take my chance of a shot from the horse’s back. Just as I raised my rifle the bull gave a “pooph, pooph,” and came at me. My horse shook his head and I missed clean. The reins were on the animal’s neck, and before I could gather them he had gone a couple of hundred yards. The bull charged only a very short distance, turned and made for the donga. I returned quickly and jumped off on the bank. I could just see the bull going through the reeds and bush, and whether I hit him or not I cannot say. At all events, I never saw him again. I got another soon afterwards, but this did not comfort me for the loss of a far finer pair of horns. We bagged nine bulls altogether, but none of them so good as the one I had failed to secure. The Kaffirs afterwards tracked that bull for a long way, but eventually lost his spoor in that of the rest of the herd.

Probably the poor brute died later on. My shot must have been close to the spine, since it crippled him for the moment, and may or may not have penetrated his body. Possibly it glanced off his ribs, but at a distance of only about twenty yards this does not seem likely. At all events, he was not brought to bag, and except to the poor bull himself the nature of his wound was therefore of very little consequence.

Meanwhile we had killed a lot of meat, and it took us some time to go round and make all the carcases safe against jackals, vultures, &c. Mr. G. wanted to make biltong, for which purpose he left the Kaffirs on the ground whilst we all rode slowly home to camp.

Next morning we found that both of Mr. G.’s horses had got loose during the night, so that in addition to sending a waggon for the meat, the recovery of the horses—assuming neither to have been eaten by lions—had to be attended to. Mr. G. borrowed one of our horses, and with all remaining Kaffirs, except one, started off; we three staying to guard the camp. It was well that we had not persisted in setting forth ourselves; for had we done so the whole camp would have been burned by a veldt fire. Working frantically, it was all that we could do, after burning the grass behind us, to carry or drag the whole of our belongings to a place of safety. Scarcely had we finished, when the fire came up and went past like an express train. Fortunately the grass in the donga close at hand was green, and therefore escaped, but we had much difficulty in keeping the horses and oxen in it; had they broken away they would of course have galloped for miles before the fire, and some not impossibly have been caught by it.

In the evening Mr. G. returned with his horses, and the waggon also came in laden with meat; the greater part of the latter, however, was useless, owing to the intense heat of the sun and the distance that had been covered in bringing it to camp. Mr. G. regretted much that instead of sending for the meat we had not shifted camp to where the buffalo had been killed.

The following day we had some excellent sport with a troop of wildebeeste which gave us a rare gallop. One of my horses was a grey half-bred Arab and rather fast; the ground was fairly good going, and I made up my mind to try whether I could get alongside for a shot off the horse’s back. To my great delight, after about three miles as hard as we could go, I raced up alongside the bull I had selected, and, firing from the hip, bowled him over like a rabbit, shot through the heart. All things considered, I am certain that next after a fast forty minutes with hounds at home there is nothing to touch a gallop after antelopes in South Africa. With a reasonably good horse it is fairly easy to get within fifty yards, and then jump off and shoot, but only a very smart horse can actually bring you alongside anything except a fat bull eland. The last I believe is easy to catch up with, but I cannot speak of this from personal experience. Riding homewards on the evening of the day I have just mentioned I met T. As a rule, from the moment we started galloping after the first troop of buck we met with, we seldom saw anything more of each other until we had reached the camp. Every man rode his own line towards any point of the compass, and it was long odds against any two of the party afterwards falling in with each other. Well, as we were riding slowly along, T. suddenly exclaimed, “Lions!” and scrambled off his horse. In a moment I was off too, but being a second behind was just late. What I saw as I was about to dismount was a magnificent great lion, accompanied by two lionesses, on the edge of a donga about 120 yards to our left. As I hastily put up my rifle they had turned round and were just disappearing. I pulled the trigger at the lion, and I always think that I was dead on him and must have got him. But, horrible to relate, the rifle was on half-cock! The chance was gone! T. meanwhile had missed. We jumped on to our horses and galloped hard to the donga, but not a sign was to be seen. The lions were no doubt lying down. T. had but one cartridge left, and I had only three; otherwise by shooting at random here and there amongst the tall reeds we might have moved the game. We were only about a mile from camp, and the wind was blowing in that direction, so we were afraid to set fire to the grass. There was, therefore, only one thing to be done, and this we promptly did. We galloped home as fast as we could to fetch Kaffirs and dogs, and get more cartridges. The dogs picked up the line at once, but after following it for about a couple of miles we were obliged to whip off, as it was nearly dark. These were the only lions we saw during the trip. Spoor of them was plentiful and their voices could be heard in the night, but that was all. Lions are very shy and very clever. To get a lion one must, as a rule, trust to the chapter of accidents; looking for them, as we often did upon this and other occasions, a chance seldom comes. Upon the other hand, when game is not plentiful, it is well known that lions make themselves a great nuisance prowling round the camp at night looking for a chance to bag man, horse, or ox, and to keep them off a good fire is very necessary.

A few days afterwards we made an excursion to the border of the “fly” country. Several specimens of the murderous insect settled on various horses, but as we took care to sheer off whenever a fly was seen, no harm was done. A few bites are of no consequence. Here we stumbled upon the camp of a Mr. S. whom we had seen at Pretoria months before, but not since. He had been trekking all over the place, and it was rather remarkable our meeting with him. He had had good sport in the “fly” country, into which he had gone with a light kit and a few Kaffirs to carry it. Finally, after a number of quite enjoyable days’ sport, during which, however, nothing really remarkable took place, the time came for us to return to Lydenburg. We had for the last three days been working towards home, and in the end had only some sixty miles to ride. Leaving the waggons to follow, we started at daybreak, and reached Lydenburg in good time for dinner.

There is one matter to which it is worth while to call attention, in reference to life on the veldt. It is wonderful how quickly and accurately the “homing instinct” becomes developed. Every morning Mr. G. would explain to us that the waggons would trek during the course of the day to the banks of a certain river, or to a pool of water, say twenty miles distant, in a direction that he pointed out. There might or might not be some guiding landmark. Within a couple of hours it would certainly have happened that no two of the party were together. All would have ridden in various directions, wherever the game led them. Yet throughout the trip not one of us ever failed to find the waggon in the evening! The nearest approach to any one being lost was when W., actually heading straight for camp, was overtaken by the darkness when still about a mile distant. He was just about to light a fire when, becoming anxious about him, we began to fire shots to attract his attention; he replied, and twenty minutes later walked in. Of course, I must admit that this was not our first trip, and that we had all of us ridden about the veldt a good deal during the previous two years. Yet this power of finding the way from a place that one had necessarily but slight knowledge of to another, fifteen or twenty miles distant, that one had never seen at all, and there find, in the bush, a waggon, is sufficiently remarkable. Clearly the result was not dependent upon reasoning, not upon ordinary “lump of locality,” but simply upon instinct. It should be remembered that this was not a case of riding straight for a point; upon the contrary, one had been galloping hither and thither, and not until the afternoon was the horse’s head directed homewards, where, as a rule, all arrived before dark.

At the risk of being tedious I will quote an example of “homing instinct” that in my opinion is rather curious. A year before the trip which I have been writing about, I was one of a party of four shooting in the Waterberg district. The ponies belonging to F. and myself were both in need of a day’s rest, and F. and I walked with the others to a place where some game had been killed the day before, in order to get the horns and send them to camp, carried by Kaffirs. This done, F. and I took a line through the bush with the idea of looking for guinea-fowls, and after shooting a few to walk home. We had been about two hours on our way when I was seized with a conviction that we had arrived close home, and I said so. F. instantly replied that he had been just about to make the same remark. The bush was very thick, and it was impossible to see more than fifty yards. We agreed that F. should stand where he was whilst I made a cast to the right. Two hundred yards brought me to the open ground, and there by the waterhole, a hundred and fifty yards away, was the waggon! This find was clearly due to instinct and nothing else; we were neither of us prompted in the very least by any familiar feature. All around us was bush of precisely the same character.

Perhaps even more remarkable was the power of finding next day the carcase of a buck killed during the course of the previous day, perhaps ten miles from camp, and covered where it lay with a few branches to keep off the vultures and jackals. We ourselves, I admit, sometimes failed in this, but G. never; nor did a Boer called B. who guided our party to the Waterberg. Yet how strange it is that men who have been on the veldt more years than we spent months, and who year after year have been doing as I have described, have yet been lost hopelessly and died miserably of thirst! In a word, however practised the instinct, it must not be trusted always. The golden rule, I have been told, to follow when lost is to sit down, light a fire, discharge your rifle from time to time, if you can spare the cartridges, and there wait until some of your party find you. To advance, once you have ceased to feel certain that you are going the right way, is fatal. To attempt walking in the dark when not absolutely sure of the direction almost always ends in wandering in a circle.

South Africa in the seventies was not a bad place for sport, but what must it have been in the fifties! A certain Colonel B., late of the 45th Regiment, told us, in Maritzburg in 1876, that twenty years before he had shot elephants within a day’s ride of Durban. In our day there was just one elephant south of the Zambesi; it was in Zululand, and poor Guy Dawnay, one of the best fellows and one of the best sportsmen that ever lived, killed it in 1875 or 1876—I cannot remember which. Ten years later poor Dawnay was himself killed by a wounded buffalo. This rather disjointed yarn has now reached the useful limit, and must therefore end.

During the last few years there has been a great deal written on this subject. It has been put forward that the necessity exists in England for the resuscitation of the male line of Herod; that this blood is gradually declining in prominence not only in England but in all other countries where thoroughbreds exist; and that, if breeders do not tackle the question seriously, the probability will be that Herod in the male line will become extinct.

Now, although it is an undoubted fact that the male line of Herod is gradually being pushed on one side by the descendants of Eclipse, it does not seem that that fact alone is a sufficient argument in favour of an attempt to reinstate the blood in the position which it once held. It is a curious fact that although the male line of Herod is slowly dying out, while the male line of Eclipse is becoming so prominent, yet that if the pedigree of any horse of the present day be carefully examined it will be found that the blood of Herod predominates in the most marked degree. For instance, the pedigree of St. Simon contains ninety-one crosses of Eclipse, and no less than one hundred and forty-six of Herod, and there is not a single thoroughbred horse living to-day which does not possess a greater number of Herod crosses than of Eclipse. And this is true not only of the horses of to-day but of the horses of one hundred years ago.

Yet, in spite of this, the male line of Eclipse since the year 1800 has been successful in seventy Derbies as compared with twenty-five won by representatives of the Herod male line. In the Oaks sixty-two winners are sired by direct male descendants of Eclipse, while only twenty-eight can be claimed by Herod during the same period. Nor is the superiority confined to the winners of these races themselves. If we take the pedigree of the dams of Derby winners we find that the dams in fifty-five instances are got by Eclipse horses, and in only thirty-six cases by Herod horses. Putting the same test to Oaks winners, we find fifty-nine of them got by Eclipse horses and thirty-five by Herod horses.

The above table shows a list of the horses that have sired three or more classic winners, i.e., Derby, Oaks, and St. Leger. The letters E, H, and M after a horse’s name denotes whether it is of (E) Eclipse, (H) Herod, or (M) Matchem descent in the male line.

This list, which covers a period from the birth of Herod to the present day, contains forty-six names, of which thirty-one are male descendants of Eclipse, and only twelve of Herod.

The following horses have headed the list of winning stallions since 1850:—

Epirus (H), Orlando (E), Birdcatcher (E), Melbourne (M), Touchstone (E), Newminster (E), Stockwell (E), Buccaneer (H), Thormanby (H), King Tom (E), Blair Athol (E), Adventurer (E), Lord Clifden (E), Speculum (E), Flageolet (E), Hermit (E), Hampton (E), Galopin (E), St. Simon (E), Kendal (E), Orme (E), Persimmon (E), St. Frusquin (E), Gallinule (E).

From this it will be gathered that Herod horses have headed the list in three years, Matchem one year, while Eclipse horses monopolise all the other years.

So we now have the following facts, that although Eclipse horses have won the Derby, Leger, and Oaks nearly twice as often as Herod horses, and have sired the dams of the winners of these races in about the same proportion, and have further headed the list of winning sires almost without break for the last fifty years, yet in the pedigree of every one of these Eclipse horses mentioned above the name of Herod occurs oftener than that of Eclipse.

Now, surely it is very significant that although all our thoroughbred horses of the present day possess more crosses of Herod blood than Eclipse blood, yet the Herod male line is being slowly and surely pushed out by the Eclipse male line. One might almost regard it as a logical consequence that the extra crosses of Herod should give the Herod male line an increased strength and prepotency, but, as a fact, we find the exact opposite to this is the case.

A few illustrations taken from contemporaneous sires will best explain the force of this. For instance, let us take Whalebone and Phantom, winners of the Derby in consecutive years, 1807 and 1808. Whalebone, a direct descendant of Eclipse in tail male, contained one cross only of Eclipse and two crosses of Herod. Phantom, a descendant of Herod in the male line, contained four crosses of Herod and two of Eclipse. Phantom to-day has very few tail male representatives at the stud, while Whalebone is represented by the whole of the Newminster and Stockwell line, backed up by the Isonomy line in later days. A comparison between Birdcatcher and his nearest Herod contemporary, Bay Middleton, works out with much the same result. Birdcatcher’s pedigree contains four crosses of Eclipse and nine crosses of Herod; Bay Middleton six of Eclipse and thirteen of Herod. Yet we have to go to France to find any prominent representatives of the Bay Middleton male line; while two Birdcatcher horses (Isinglass and Gallinule) are top of the list of winning sires to-day.

All these facts would seem to go to prove that in spite of the preponderance of Herod blood in our horses, in spite of the occasional prominence of individual members of the Herod male line, there is some natural force which is always working to place the Eclipse male line on top. It is quite evident that the male line of Eclipse cannot be “swamped,” and that the blood gets stronger and stronger the older it grows.

Many contemporary writers on the history of thoroughbred horses have commented on this ascendancy of the Eclipse male line, and some have attempted to account for it by ascribing it to chance and fashion. Mr. W. Allison, in his interesting book, “The British Thoroughbred,” devotes a whole chapter to the subject, and is quite satisfied that the “great success of Eclipse is due to Sir Hercules, Camel, and fashion.” He also points out the necessity which seems to exist of reviving the blood. But just how this revival is to be effected is what is puzzling, and always will puzzle, breeders.

Perhaps the most feasible explanation of why the Herod blood in the male line is dying out, and why the Eclipse male line is so preponderant, can be found in a close analysis of the pedigrees of the two horses, and by comparing the results with the conditions which prevail among horses in their natural state. It will then be found that the dying-out of the Herod line is more a working out of the laws of Nature than anything else, and is probably beyond human control.

Let us first take the pedigree of a wild horse, and see how he is made up. It may seem an anomaly to talk of the pedigree of a wild horse, but every animal has a pedigree if we could but trace it. The horse in a state of Nature is a gregarious animal, living in herds or groups, each group having its premier stallion, who is literally “lord of the harem.” A stallion remains at the head of his group until he gets too old to be effective, and he is then driven away by one of the younger stallions, probably one of his own sons. In a wild state the mare breeds young, dropping her foal when about three years old. A wild stallion will probably remain vigorous and capable of holding his own until ten or twelve years old. He will then probably be breeding with his own daughters and possibly granddaughters. When he is ousted and his son reigns in his stead, he in his turn will be cohabiting with his sisters, aunts, and cousins, until eventually you have the whole herd very much in-bred. In fact, the wild horse is a very much more in-bred animal than the tame horse, and Nature evidently intends the horse to be an in-bred animal.

Now let us take the pedigrees of Herod and Eclipse, and analyse them. Without going too deeply into detail, which might be bewildering to those unskilled in pedigree lore, it will be sufficient to state broadly that Herod is a cross-bred or out-bred horse; while Eclipse is an in-bred one. We have to go back six generations in Herod’s pedigree before we get the same name occurring twice, as that of Spanker, and the same name occurs in the seventh and eighth generations. Herod, therefore, has four crosses of Spanker, and no other instances of in-breeding. Eclipse, on the other hand, has crosses of Hautboy at his fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth removes—nine of them in all—while he also possesses seven crosses of Spanker.

A curious point about the pedigrees of both Herod and Eclipse is that this same Spanker blood has been handed down to us through only one channel, and that by the incestuous mating of Spanker and his dam. The produce of this mare was the grand-dam of Betty Leedes, who in her turn was the dam of the two Childers. This piece of incestuous breeding seems to have been the rock on which the British thoroughbred was built, for it will be found, on examining all the old pedigrees, that their strength lies in their in-breeding to the two Childers (the No. 6 family).

We have already seen that the wild horse is incestuously in-bred, and we know that, of Herod and Eclipse, the latter was the more incestuously in-bred of the two. Does it not seem, then, a simple working out of the laws of Nature that the Eclipse male line should be more prepotent than the Herod male line, bearing as it does, though artificially produced, a closer resemblance to the breeding of the horse in a state of Nature?

The fact that Herod’s name occurs more often than that of Eclipse in modern pedigrees would seem to go to strengthen this theory, for the Herod blood is more diluted, so to speak, than that of Eclipse, and seems unable to resist the concentrated force of the more incestuously in-bred Eclipse line.

Although the hawthorn in the valley was opening its leaves and disclosing the rosy-tipped buds of May, there were but few signs of returning spring on the marshlands of the mountain slope. The scanty grass was withered with the searching winds of winter, and the wild thyme had scarcely yet begun to creep over the lichened stones; but through the entanglement of beaten-down reeds and rushes by the waterside fresh green spikes were pushing their way up to the light. Here and there some flecks of gold enlivened the whin bushes, and, far away in the distant valley, a thrush was singing. The song floated up the still air of the valley as the blue mists of the late afternoon paled into the evening grey; the last flush of sunset faded over the rugged mountains of the west, and the melancholy marshland sank into the shadows of the coming night. Then the thrush’s song died in the gathering darkness, and all was still, save for the bark of some shepherd’s dog in the distance and the faint murmur of a trout stream—sounds that only seemed to intensify the quietude.

Suddenly the desolate marsh was awakened by a ringing, booming voice that pierced the misty darkness and vibrated in the still air. No echo followed that weird, mysterious call, that deep metallic ring, “as when a bell no longer swings,” but the desolation of the moors seemed the more desolate as I listened and wondered what the sound might be. The night hugged the silence, Nature held her breath, until again that lonely booming voice broke the stillness and died in a tone of despairing lament. Passion was in the voice, and love; a challenge was there, yet a sublimity and a loneliness that haunted the very breath of spring. Once more the vibrating tones were swallowed up by the darkness, but once again they pierced the night air and rang in a cadence of passionate, deep-toned booms that shook “the sounding marsh” and awakened the desolate places of the sleeping earth. Even as the lightning smites the heavy laden cloud and disperses it in drops of rain, so that penetrating voice struck the brooding darkness of the moor, and the abiding peace, in little fragments, was shattered and forgotten in a multitude of thoughts.

Those who are acquainted with the bird-life of our islands need not be told that the deep-toned, booming cry of the last of the bitterns was heard a very long while ago. Marshes have been drained and rough lands cleared, cornfields and rich pastures cover the earth which once swayed and rustled with bulrushes and tasselled reeds, and the birds and flowers—the aborigines of the marshlands—have been driven away from their old haunts. Yet one would not stay the cultivator’s hand that the secluded retreat of the bittern might be left undisturbed. Time brings many changes, and the well-cleared dyke, the uprooted reeds and willows, the burning of scrubby wastes, were inevitable, and once the nesting place—the home of a species—is taken away extinction becomes a matter of years. So the noble bittern that stalked heron-like in the shallow pools and streams of the fens and marshes, whose pencilled plumage of rich browns of varying shades blended so beautifully with the surroundings, and whose weird notes resounded in the spring nights of long ago, year after year, became a less frequent visitor. It is probably twenty-five years or more since the last love-song of the bittern was answered, and some eggs were laid, in the land that it had inhabited for so long. Now some few stragglers drift into our shores, but the booming note—the love-song only uttered at nesting time—is no longer heard, and those lonely migrants that casually seek refuge here only too quickly fall a prey to the loafer’s gun.

But there is no reason to suppose why, if suitable places—

but secluded tracts of land, such as still exist in many counties of Wales particularly, were protected, many of our partially extinct birds would avail themselves of the opportunity of breeding again in the old home of their ancestors. In these days of cheap cartridges, few birds that are not catalogued as common, are suffered to exist, and the rarer the species so much the less chance has it of surviving. Speaking generally, the sportsman—I mean the man who is fond of a gun and who protects rather than exterminates those birds and animals not really destructive—is the friend rather than the foe of our wild life, but the class of gamekeeper who, often against his employer’s instructions, kills anything that his imagination can conceive to be harmful or uncommon is responsible for much of the extinction now going on. The loafer who “pots” seals and swallows on Sundays, and earns his beer by selling skins of kingfishers (for the kingfisher is yet another that must now be considered rare) and other rarities to local “naturalists” is a tyrant of the meanest order, a parasite upon his own kind and a terror to all things beautiful and rare. In speaking upon this subject one wishes to refrain from any sickly sentiment, of which there has already been a super-abundance. The effect of much that has been written and spoken on the extinction of our wild birds has been neutralised on account of the rabid and ultra-sentimental way in which enthusiasts have expressed their views and feelings, and, as in the case of “vivisection,” many people who might have been workers for good have been reluctant to join forces with those who have clamoured and preached so extravagantly. Owing to the efforts of private individuals and the various societies, a great deal has been done to protect the wild life that is annually becoming scarcer; but much remains to be done, and most particularly in the case of those few straggling remnants of our avifauna, viz., the bitterns and bustards, hen-harriers and marsh-harriers, eagles and kites, hoopoes and ravens, and others of that sad, long list of birds, the most beautiful and noblest that ever gave lustre to our avian population.

It is strange, too, that all, or nearly all, these declining races were denizens of the marshlands or the mountain where the voice of a bird is ever such a welcome sound, and to-day when the chilly winds of a March evening drive through the lank, dry grass with a whistling sound, or surge and whisper in the heather, to which still cling last year’s faded flowers, when the curlew and the plover break the solitude with their wild, yet plaintive cries, when the last dipper has shot like a black dart round the bend of the stream, and the skylarks, that have been joyously singing far up in the sky the day long, have sank silently into the beds of rushes, then, when the wind sinks away into the still dark valley below, one feels that Nature is still waiting and listening for the ringing boom of the bittern to herald the birth of the marshland spring. But only the shepherd’s dog barks intermittently in the darkness, and a voice like that of some belated sheep falls dreamily upon the air of night. Up there, where the club moss stands sturdily in the crisp snow, the grim old rocks that have witnessed man’s coming, and will, perchance, witness his passing, look down upon these “haunts of ancient peace,” and we ponder over the changes that time has wrought in the solitary spot.

At no other times, perhaps, have there been such opportunities to obtain lessons in almost everything that concerns horses than at the three shows, for the Shires, the Hackneys, and the hunters. For the last quarter of a century the right roads have been taken to develop and improve the English breeds, and in that comparatively short space of time the effects of sensible and scientific breeding have been quite wonderful on materials existing years, almost centuries, ago, but neglected by past generations, and often enough nearly lost. Now it happens again that everything is in its pristine excellence, but even better, and presenting really a great British industry in which no rivals can be feared, and one that might help the ever difficult problem of what to do with young England, the over-population that want new lands for farming, and more especially for breeding and rearing horses. Englishmen can do it better than others, as has been seen at these shows, but they want lands that are not over-rented, rated and taxed, and under such conditions thousands might leave these shores with altogether unsurpassed stock to breed horses for the mart of the world. Will South Africa, Canada, or other territories at present belonging to the Empire, be made available? But that is a political question; governments must see to it. All the public has to think about is that the English breeds are now perfection; and, to begin with, there is nothing greater than those known far and wide as

It was not so much in regard to the numbers as the quality that made the show of these farmers’ friends so great, and it may be that the development of this element is so noticeable in the Shire as to make it a very satisfactory occupation to breed him; it has specially fascinated many great personages and sportsmen, from His Majesty the King downwards, the exhibitors now including the Duke of Westminster, the Duke of Marlborough, Marquis Campden, Earls Ellesmere, Egerton of Tatton, Bathurst, M.F.H., Spencer, M.F.H., Beauchamp, Lords Middleton, M.F.H., Southampton, M.F.H., Rothschild, M.S.H., Iveagh, Winterstoke, Hothfield, Sir Berkeley Sheffield, Bart., Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart., Sir William Cooke, Bart., M.F.H., Sir Edward Stern, Sir Albert Muntz, Bart., the great welter of the Midlands, the Hon. R. P. Nevill, M.F.H., and others of rank and wealth. The extension of the movement in regard to improvement is indeed very marked. That the patrons of foxhunting should ally themselves so closely with the Shire interest is possibly owing to the desire to see the noble pastime identified with agriculture. It is doing good to promote such a breed, both for the cause of the landlord and the tenant.

From the yearling colts to the oldest of the stallions it was all quality, and although the examples are bigger to-day than they have ever been, they have more agility in their movements, are cleaner cut about their heads and jowls, and more majestic in carriage. For the enormous class of sixty yearling colts it was an honour indeed to take the first, which fell to Mr. Frank Farnsworth from a great hunting district for the promising young son of Lockinge Forest King hailed from Tooley Park, Hinckley, within easy access of the Quorn and Atherstone. Leicestershire appears to be the land for Shires, as besides Mr. Farnsworth’s stud, which must be of great fame to include such colts as Ratcliffe Conquering King and Ratcliffe Forest King (the latter very nearly the winner of the two-year-olds, as he was second in a class of seventy), there were several others from the hunting county. In Warwickshire also they seem to thrive, as few more beautiful exhibits were seen at the show than those of Sir Albert Muntz from Dunsmore, his three-year-old mare winner, Dunsmore Fuchsia, being quite a model of her sort; all Sir Albert’s ten exhibits were in the money or amongst the commendations.

Lord Egerton of Tatton sent up some very notable entries from the old Cheshire cheese country; the defeat of the grand six-year-old stallion, Tatton Friar, was much regretted by many onlookers: but it followed a very notable victory in the two-year-old class of 70, in which Tatton Dray King was the winner: it is something for one stud to take the two-year-old colt and the two-year-old filly class, for the latter fell to Lord Egerton with Tatton May Queen, a great beauty.

His Majesty, who goes in for everything useful on his Sandringham estate, was an exhibitor of five, and a popular success was that of Ravenspur, the thickest of horses on the shortest of legs; and here again it was Leicestershire soil that claims credit for this success, as the winner was bred by Sir Humphrey de Trafford at Hill Crest, Market Harborough, making good the saying that where bullocks can fatten and hounds can run, is the ground for the Shire. Lincolnshire, though, is always a likely quarter, and the champion of the show hailed from this county in the shape of Present King II., a very remarkable horse; although eight years old this grass, he has been unknown to the general public until now, and it says something for Mr. James Forshaw’s judgment to have found him. He was bred by Mr. Joseph Phillipson, of Hainton, Lincoln, and as he is a coal-black horse, with very little white about him, and his dam is by Black Prince, he is living evidence of the old Black horse reported to have been almost lost in its purity. Anyway, he is a very bold, fine horse of quite the biggest size.

Lord Rothschild was not in the same lucky vein as he was last year, in that the defeat of his champion, Girton Charmer, by an unknown quantity like Present King II., was irritating; that the hitherto unbeaten Childwick Champion should be beaten for the Special Cup by the two-year-old winner, Tatton Dray King, was hardly expected. The great Tring Park stud, though, won in other classes amongst the mares. It was, in all, a very great show, though not without its disappointments, as horses previously undefeated went down before new-comers. Among the mares, as among the others, Mr. James Forshaw had found another in the grey, Sussex Blue Gown, to win in her class, and she beat Lord Rothschild’s Princess Beryl for the Champion Cup, the famous Nottinghamshire stallion owner thus taking both cups for the horses and the mares. The sales were good but not sensational, the only exception being when Lord Beauchamp gave 510 guineas for the champion mare alluded to.

The Hackney Show.

The same view must be taken in regard to success of the Hackneys. The progress made with this breed is perhaps more noteworthy than that made with the Shires, as in the absence of so much patronage from the greatest people in the country, the breed has been brought to a wonderful state of perfection, and evidence of the same sensible and scientific breeding can be easily traced. Moreover, signs were not wanting to show that the foreigners are keener in their endeavours to get possession of our Hackneys than they are at present to purchase our Shires. Two large Government commissions were noticeable, at any rate, namely from France and Germany, for the purchase of a goodly number of stallions, and Holland took the champion of the Show for 1,000 guineas. This desire to get the best of English sorts is not due entirely to the demands for cavalry breeding, but the wise councils of other European countries consider that an industry to give the means of prosperity to thousands of subjects is well worth cultivating. This, too, on circumscribed lands with little or no colonial extension; but England, with her millions of acres in all parts of the globe, possessing better animal stocks than all the rest of the world put together, is neglectful of her opportunities. Why cannot her sons be set up in far-off lands to breed horses for the world? But to these magnificent Hackneys: It cannot be denied that the Dutch have got possession of a very grand specimen in Diplomatist, whose lot it must have been to do good in a variety of countries. He was first of all shown at the Hackney Society’s Show as a yearling; then, after doing some service in England, he was sold to America, where he got some stock of note before Mr. Heaton brought him back to England and sold him to Mr. Ramsey, of Kildalton, Port Ellen, Islay, N.B. And here let it be said that Scotch breeders have done uncommonly well at this Show. Mr. Ramsey, a prominent breeder in the northern country, won the Champion Cup last year at the London Show with Diplomatist, and now repeated the victory before selling the dual champion to Holland. Diplomatist is a very beautiful horse of about 15.2, with extraordinary action; his pedigree contains some of the best blood in the Hackney Stud Book, for he is by His Majesty out of Garton Birthday, by Garton Duke of Connaught. There were several fights in the Show between the North and the South. Sir Walter Gilbey equalised the pretensions of Yorkshire and Norfolk, when he brought Danegelt down South, at a cost of 5,000 guineas. Since then the champions of Essex and Norfolk have held their own with those of the many-acred county. Sir Walter has won the championship twice with Royal Danegelt, a son of Danegelt, and it looked as if the Essex baronet might score again in another generation, as Bonny Danegelt stood in a long time with Langton, a grand twelve-year-old horse by Garton Duke of Connaught, and many thought should have won. It was not to be though, and this particular prize went to the north, Langton being the property of Mr. E. C. McKibbin, of the Heaning, Windermere, though bred by Mr. Thomas Hall, of Copmanthorpe, the owner of the great Garton Duke of Connaught, who was summed up to me last year at the Yorkshire show as the greatest hackney sire in the world. He was certainly in the full order of success now, as the Messrs. Hall, father and sons, showed some beautiful stock by the veteran, including the two-year-old colt winner, Copmanthorpe Performer, a truly symmetrical animal with singularly beautiful action. There was also Administrator, owned and exhibited by Mr. Walter Burnell Tubbs, another son of this Duke of Connaught, a wonderfully handsome horse who showed grandly in harness. Last year and the year before he won the Champion Cup for his then owner, Mr. Galbraith. He is nearly, if not quite, as good as Diplomatist.

The points that struck one throughout the whole show was, that breeders have got to a type that comes down quite as regularly as in the thoroughbred horses of the General Stud Book. Royal Danegelt was the copy of his sire, Danegelt, and the former at this Show had a number in precisely the same form in shape and action. They are getting a bit bigger, as in Class 8, for horses over 15.2, there were sixteen in the ring, and several must have been very close on 16 hands. It is notable that the foreign buyers were very interested in this class, and made two important purchases from it in Forest Star, who was placed third, and the above-named Diplomatist. A suggestion is given here that the size attained in the Hackney is a useful element in regard to success. It was generally thought that the horses made a better show than the mares; and, in truth, there were fewer mares than usual, but whether from the fact that a great many were sold last year, or that breeders are chary about sending their valuable breeding stock to shows in the spring, it is difficult to say. Many of those that were seen though, were beautiful animals. Sir Gilbert Greenall’s Colleen Rose, by Garton Duke of Connaught, could scarcely be excelled as a fine carriage mare of quality, and Menella, the champion harness mare, was a great beauty with action of a most superb order. An extraordinary horse must be her sire, Mathias, as, to judge him from a photograph he gets all his stock exactly like himself, and with the same wonderful movement. Another as remarkable in this respect is Sir Gilbert Greenall’s Sir Horace, under 14 hands, as he had nine winners at the Show all looking the exact types of perfection—bloodlike heads, beautifully laid shoulders, round barrels, moulded quarters, and limbs set under them in the same stamp. What has the breed come to from the shapely Diplomatist and Bonny Danegelt, to the ponies, Pinderfields Horace and Little Woman, for all these and many more the word beautiful cannot be misapplied—and the Show might well have been watched for the full four days to see by the pedigrees, the make and shape and the action more real now than artificial, and to wonder whether the present conditions of the so-called Hackney can ever be surpassed.

The Royal Commissions—Thoroughbred Stallions.

The progress so noticeable in regard to the thoroughbred stallions forms an important feature of the great spring shows. There was first of all a better entry than those of the past three years, and it would appear that the owners of horses have been educated into the exact ideas in respect to the requirement. It was a movement in the right direction certainly to give some evidence in the catalogue as to what horses had done on the turf, and still more to empower the judges to act upon the information provided. The net result of all being, that there was hardly a stallion exhibited that was not perfectly suitable for the purposes of the Commission. With but the fewest exceptions the horses had all been winners; some that had been known on the racecourse for over seven years, and others that had won very important events. There were 107 in all, and as this did not include any from Ireland, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are very well off for useful sires at the present time.

There were some splendid classes brought into competition on March 13th, the one scheduled D perhaps being the best, as here was the beautiful horse Battlement by Enterprise, out of Ivy Mantle by Mask. He is the winner now of four premiums, and has done a great deal of good. When the property of Mr. A. O. Haslewood, of Buxton, he travelled in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and since his owner has been Colonel Jago Trelawny he has done service in Cornwall and the South of Devon. The farmers of these western counties swear by him already, and there will be great rejoicing round Plymouth, as, besides Battlement, there was a very good four-year-old called Rockaway, by the good Australian Trenton, son of Musket, belonging to Mr. Bickell, of Tavistock. So clever did the judges think Rockaway that they gave him one of the four premiums. Mr. Bickell also showed the well-bred Mon-Roy, by Orme, out of Mon Droit by Isonomy. And another Devonshire candidate was Flaxby, quite a hunter-getting sort by Barcaldine, out of a Palmer mare. So Devonshire is evidently well off in hunting stallions. Then, still in this D class, too much cannot be said of Rightful, improved into quite a charming horse. Rightful comes from such a handsome family by Rightaway, out of Repletion by Satiety. He is one, too, for whom racing merit can be claimed. Kano, another Trenton, and a good winner, had also much to admire about him, and as one of the reserved, he became available for one of the classes not so overstocked with merit. It is always well to see Yorkshire to the front, and really there was little to surpass the magnificence of Wales in the whole show. Big and powerful, with plenty of timber, and blood-like withal, besides the knowledge that he was a right-down good horse on the flat and over a country. To show what he can get, too, Lord Middleton made a great hit in the group of young hunters by Wales; they were quite away from the stock of other stallions, albeit very good ones by Red Prince II. and Pantomine were shown. But to the Yorkshire class: There was also Frobisher, a very nice horse by Mr. H. Waring’s Buccaneer, made a premium winner: and although he did not quite get into honours, save a reserve, I thought there were few better than the Manchester Cup dead-heater, Roe O’Neil, by Sweetheart, who used to get almost as many jumpers as Victor, out of a Ben Battle mare. The Yorkshiremen are sure to take to Roe O’Neil. Garb d’Or was also unlucky to get a reserve only, as he is a very handsome son of Bend Or, and quite in the family type, Birdcatcher spots and all. In the Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, &c., Class it was a treat to see the long, low level Curio win again, after knowing full well the good he has done in Warwickshire; and a charming young horse was shown here by Mr. Haslewood, of Buxton, and that gentleman invariably picks up the best, as Red Eagle once belonged to him, then Battlement, and now Landsman, a son of Ladas, and a Gallinule mare; and so what blood for a hunter! Another that kept haunting me with his blood-like outline and quick, sharp action, was Mr. C. M. Prior’s Rathburne, a winner of the Brighton Stakes in his time, and the judges rightly took to him. The executive was very wise to get Sir Charles Nugent and Mr. J. M. Richardson on their bench of enquiry, as they were not likely to make any mistakes.

After much had been seen in regard to the hunting sires themselves, it was all the more interesting to follow in the steps of the Hunters’ Improvement Society, and at no show has the results, in the shape of produce, come out so satisfactorily. The four-year-old winner, Splasher, bred and shown by a tenant farmer, was by Burnock-Water, four times a King’s Premium taker, and the three-year-old filly, and champion of all the young hunters, namely, Watercress, belonged to the same owner, and was by the same sire. This was precisely what the Royal Commission has aimed at, to enrich the tenant farmer. There were many other results to observe in the same direction, notably in the case of Battlement, presented with two Premiums in the past career for Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, South Wales, &c., and from Shropshire came the beautiful Bandetta, by Battlement, who was unlucky not to have won in her class. Then there was Havoc, well known at the Royal Commission Shows, and the sire of Destruction, a winner in this; and the second to the champion filly, Watercress, was Paleface, by Ringoal, who was introduced into Huntingdonshire by the Royal Commission. Added to this also, there was stock of great value seen by Wales, including four in the group, and the second and third in the three-year-old class, won by Destruction. The champion of the show, Mr. Drage’s (now Mr. Cory Wright’s) King Edward, had unfortunately no pedigree given, though doubtless extremely well bred, and the question arises as to whether all the societies now are not strong enough to insist on pedigrees at entry pro bono publico.

One might go on writing in Baily for ever about these shows, as they have taught us a great deal in the last few weeks; and something might be said to the Government about the horse-breeding industry, and of its vast importance to the British empire.

Mr. Rawdon Lee’s work established its claim to place as the best and most comprehensive book published on dogs when it first appeared. The third edition of “Modern Dogs (Sporting Division)”^[8] is now before us, and the contents bear evidence of exercise of all those qualities which stamped the earlier issues: wide and intimate knowledge, patient and exhaustive enquiry.

The title may be said to fall short of the scope of the work; for the author’s pages contain much relating to the history of the older breeds which lends additional interest to his remarks on their modern descendants, and additional value to the work as one of record.

Certain new features are noticeable in the third edition. The portraits of those famous greyhounds Master M’Grath and Fullerton were well worth inclusion, the more so as given on one plate which, as Mr. Lee observes, affords opportunity to compare the remarkable dissimilarity in build and conformation between the two most celebrated dogs of their respective periods, the seventies and the nineties. Admirers of the Welsh foxhound will appreciate the inclusion of Mr. Wardle’s clever drawing of two couples of representatives of this breed, famed as far back as the tenth century, if the hounds appraised in the Laws of Howel Dha were the ancestors of the modern animal. The author believes that the Ynysfor pack, owned by Mr. Jones, of Penrhyn Deudraeth, is the one which boasts the greatest purity of Welsh blood, but he does not think there exists in Wales or elsewhere “an entire pack of the pure Welsh hound, either of harrier or of foxhound stamp (for there are two varieties) with the wire-haired crisp coat.” The hounds which furnished Mr. Wardle for his portraits were from the otterhunting establishments of Mr. Wynn, of Rug, now given up, and from that of Mr. E. Buckley. The value of the Welsh hound for otterhunting has long been appreciated in the Principality. Mr. Buckley considers those he possesses better than the otterhound, as they feel the cold less, and their shorter coats dry more quickly. Summing up all the evidence for and against the Welsh hound, Mr. Lee holds that a capital case in his favour has been made out. Another new illustration is that of examples of the Kerry beagle; this breed survives, so far as is known, only in the kennels of Mr. Clement Ryan (the Scarteen). In that of Mr. Aubrey Wallis, Master of the recently established Millstreet Harriers, the blood of the Scarteen black and tans has been used. The Kerry beagle’s origin has been traced to the south of France, whence Mr. John Ryan brought them some time during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Among the new matters which has been added to the gun-dog section we must notice the Welsh springer, which in 1902 was accepted as a distinct variety, and allotted separate classes by the Kennel Club.

The author reviews the evidence advanced by the advocates for this step, and the Welsh spaniel takes his place among modern dogs; deservedly, for this is a hardy, courageous, docile dog, and possesses excellent nose. The Welsh variety stands out much higher on the leg than other spaniels, and Mr. Wardle’s picture gives the idea of a dog at once sporting and handsome. The third edition of Modern (Sporting) Dogs is in every way a worthy successor to its forerunners. Higher praise could not be given.

The building of cottages in the country is a matter that has attracted much attention latterly, and this little work,^[9] though it embraces the erection of buildings other than the labourer’s cottage, will be found of practical assistance to all who may contemplate building as a business. The authors display practical knowledge of their subject, from foundation to roof, if we may use the expression, and they show up in a lurid light the wanton absurdity of the building laws now in force in some localities. This is a subject to which public attention was drawn by the public-spirited action of Sir William Grantham not very long ago; and in the interests of the poorer classes it is much to be hoped that the more unreasonable clauses of these bye-laws will be revised to make cottage building possible. All classes of small dwellings, from that which costs £1,000 downwards to erect, are considered; and most of the materials in general use are dealt with. An exception occurs in the clay blocks, which, protected by weather boarding, Sir Walter Gilbey has so successfully employed on his Essex property. This method of construction, cheap, efficient, and picturesque as it has proved, deserves to be more widely known. The pictures, drawings, and photographs are admirable, and the plans are clearly and well drawn.

Bridge is said to be losing some of its vogue, but the appearance of a fifth edition of the work^[10] by “Cut Cavendish” seems to contradict the assertion. As the author observes, “unfortunately, with many people it has developed into a form of disease.” This is true, but the regrettable fact that bridge takes the shape of monomania with some enthusiasts does not affect the merit of the game, which, pursued in moderation, deserves all the praise bestowed upon it. The author has, as in previous editions, made a point of giving counsel and explanation in the most lucid form, and his book may be cordially recommended to all who wish to improve their play. We had been about to say “who are learning the game,” but hesitate to use a phrase which should imply the existence of any one who has failed to master it! A welcome addition to the work is an exposition of “Misery bridge.”

Not only is this form of the game an excellent one for two players, infinitely superior, in our judgment, to double dummy bridge, it is a capital education for the four-handed game. It may safely be said that any player who has attained to proficiency in misery bridge may take a hand in the parent game without fear of incurring those silent anathemas which befall the incompetent player who ventures into skilled company.

Half-a-dozen short stories are included in this little book,^[11] the title of which promises a Turf atmosphere. Two of the collection, however, deal with racing, the others having scarcely a bowing acquaintance with the course. All are readable, nevertheless, and may be recommended as suitable to while away the tedium of a railway journey.

RACING.

It was with a certain zest that we turned to the Sandown Park meeting that occupied the first three days of March, for the racing of the preceding fortnight or more had been sadly lacking in interest. The first of the three days was denominated the Sandown Park March Meeting, the Grand Military occupying the next two days, and the sport, on the whole, was of an interesting character. On the Club day the appearance of John M.P. in the Liverpool Trial Steeplechase was an event in itself sufficient to account for the distinctly large attendance. It was a weight-for-age race, and the winning of it did not entail any penalty for the Grand National, save in the case of a horse that had already won a steeplechase of three miles or over since the date of closing. John M.P. had already won such a race when he beat pointless Desert Chief and the untrained Kirkland, at Hurst Park; but the penalty entailed would not signify very much, the weight assigned to John M.P. in the Grand National entitling him to a deduction of half the penalty, in his case 4 lb., so that only 2 lb. extra would have to be carried. A strong impression was also abroad that John M.P would not start for the Liverpool race, but be reserved for the valuable steeplechase at Auteuil in June. That he would win this race seemed to be taken for granted, since 3 to 1 had to be laid on, which was holding the other Grand National horses in the race somewhat cheap; but of course the weight-for-age conditions made all the difference. The three and a half miles did not worry John M.P. in the least. Nothing else could go fast enough to make him really gallop, and a loud exclamation of admiration from the stands burst forth spontaneously when at the water the second time he gained a matter of three lengths from the then leader, Wolfs Folly, in front of whom he cantered home. What he had in hand it was impossible to say.

That any one of the old-time functions is a patch upon what it was formerly is naturally not admitted by the old brigade, whose opinions are, of course, expressed in the usual manner upon the Grand Military. That gentlemen riders of forefront ability are scarce is not to be disputed, and possibly the winner of the Grand Military Gold Cup of the day could not compare in class with many of his predecessors; but the old sporting spirit is still there, and the Gold Cup is coveted as much as ever. Two or three months previous to the meeting a vigorous quest was in progress with a view to securing a potential winner of this race, and in this way Royal Blaze was purchased for, it is said, £500. The purchase proved to be a happy one, for Royal Blaze won the cup for Mr. R. F. Eyre. It was a lucky win, perhaps, but one that was well deserved, Royal Blaze being sent to make the best of his way home from the mile post, whereas Prizeman, whose rider lacked experience between the flags, left matters so late that, although he was going two yards to the one of Royal Blaze and Prince Tallyrand in the last hundred and fifty yards, he had to put up with third place, two heads behind the winner. It was a desperately exciting finish, and when the post was passed the race was not over, for Mr. R. C. de Crespigny, the owner of Prince Tallyrand, laid an objection to the winner on the technical ground that a contingency had not been properly registered. Such an objection had been forestalled by an application at Weatherby’s, where everything was declared to be in order. The stewards, on the second day, over-ruled the objection, but Mr. de Crespigny did not let the matter drop, pressing for an appeal. The laying of technical objections in such races was formerly not thought of, and possibly the breaking of this chivalrous custom gives the old brigade a genuine opportunity for pointing their moral.

On the second day we saw a remarkable performance over hurdles on the part of Rassendyl, the hurdle-racer who has so rapidly made a name for himself this season. He was carrying the nice little steadier of 13 st. 3 lb. and, what was so astonishing, all but carried it home. Such was the confidence in him that his jockey did not hesitate to make running. When half the distance of two and a half miles had been covered, Rassendyl was dispossessed of the lead, but lay by handy, and took command again at the first of the two flights in the straight, in spite of having been carried out wide at the bend. He led to the run-in, where, however, Bellivor Tor challenged and won by a neck. We English are hoping that Rassendyl will be sent to Auteuil and further the entente by winning the big hurdle-race there. The success of an English horse in France is by no means necessarily unpopular with the French betting public, which means a few tens of thousands, for, if he be a good one, national pride goes into the pocket, and they are on him to a man, to say nothing of the women. The numbers of frugal Frenchwomen who slave all the week, but have five or ten francs on every race on Sundays, is astonishing to the stranger from this side of the Channel. But on the Continent there is less fear of Mrs. Grundy than here.

The racegoer, as manufactured by the modern “park” meeting, is unable to understand the interest that is taken in the annual National Hunt Steeplechase. Here we have £1,000 given for a race for five-year-olds and over, the primary condition of which is that no runner shall have previously won a steeplechase or hurdle-race, or a flat race of any description; point-to-point races not counting as steeplechases. This, at one fell swoop, abolishes all notions of “class,” a feature which we find emphasised by last year’s winner, Miss Clifton II., who for years had tried to win this race and several others, without, of course, succeeding. When, during a dark period of mistaken policy, the National Hunt Committee apportioned the race to Metropolitan enclosed courses, bearing no sort of resemblance to the real thing, the Londoner had perforce tried to grasp the inwardness of the race, but failed. Such form as there was puzzled him, which means that the betting was not to his liking; and that is the only side of racing which interests him. How so many people could take the interest they did—and as just as many still do—in the doings of such mediocre public performers was always beyond him, as it always will be. To enjoy the National Hunt Steeplechase in the way it has been presented in more recent times at Warwick and Cheltenham, one must have been educated amongst hunting surroundings. To such this class of racing talks a language utterly incomprehensible to the others referred to, who, understanding nothing of the niceties of cross-country riding and unable to appreciate the qualities of a cross-country horse, have no interest whatever in a race beyond the position occupied at the finish by the animals they have backed.

If one were called upon to decide between the Cheltenham and Warwick courses, one might be inclined to vote for Warwick, although there is not so much in it so far as the actual course is concerned, each presenting a neat assortment of grass-land and plough. But at Warwick we possess the not insignificant advantage of being able to see nearly every yard of the four miles, the hill, from which outsiders obtain such an excellent view, being all there is in the way of those in the stands, where the accommodation, although not precisely up to date, is much better than that at Cheltenham. The meeting at which the race takes place is one concerning the success of which no doubt has to be entertained. The county people could not be made to stay away by any sort of weather, so, although rain was threatening on Thursday, the 8th ult., the county stand, from the condition of which I should judge of the success of this particular meeting, was crowded with the right sort. So far as owners were concerned there was every evidence of the popularity of the race in the large field of twenty-eight that ran. This number has rarely been exceeded, a notable occasion being the race of 1860, in which year, I fancy, the event was inaugurated, and when thirty-one ran. One can have but little sympathy with those who suggest that two-thirds of the number might as well have stayed at home, for all the chance they had of winning. If sport were always looked at thus there would soon be very little of any kind to look at all, and what was left would scarcely be deserving of the name of sport. Of the twenty-eight, Glenrex and Portlight II. had filled places in previous contests, Glenrex having run second last year, and, being also mentioned in the Grand National betting, started favourite. Glenrex came down in the plough a mile or more from the finish, the running having been made from about half-way by Count Rufus, by Wise Count out of an Arraby dam. The same plough which proved fatal to Glenrex seemed likely to also settle the chance of Count Rufus, for he was passed by Portlight II., but on the good going on the racecourse Count Rufus quickly asserted himself and won very easily in the end. In finishing second Portlight II. is possibly merely following the lead of Miss Clifton II., to eventually win outright. Count Rufus had cost £300, and had won some point-to-point races, which made his starting price of 25 to 1 so surprising.

Comfort, who won the National Hunt Steeplechase in 1903, the year the race was last run at Warwick previous to Cheltenham getting it for two years, did something towards bettering the none too good reputation of winners, who seldom do much afterwards, by winning the Warwick Handicap Steeplechase, after a good tussle with Royal Drake, who broke down rather badly, although finishing second. On another occasion something should be done to prevent the landing side of the water from becoming a quagmire. More than one horse failed to keep its footing in consequence of this, the fault being, apparently, an overflow from the water.

John M.P. made another taking appearance at Hurst Park on the Saturday in this week in the Open Steeplechase, which proved in practice to be the gift it seemed on paper. The odds on were of course practically prohibitive.

It is by no means certain that foxhunting has any more enemies now than in earlier times. The great danger seems to be from the lukewarmness or injudicious action of its friends. Probably Mr. Charles Brook, of the Holderness, pointed to the real danger when he complained of the want of knowledge of hunting in those who follow the sport. For this there is a real reason, in that hunting people nowadays have so many other occupations and amusements. Hunting is only one of them. People hunt in greater numbers, but they do not see so much of the sport itself as we did in the days when we lived more in the country, hunted from home, and took the good and the bad days as they came. In very popular hunts there are fewer good days, for the simple reason that unless hounds can go fast enough to keep out of the way of the field, it is not easy to see a hunt when there is a crowd.

Second horses, though, a great addition to one’s pleasure, have this disadvantage, that if we have to make one horse go through the day we shall be more likely to succeed if we know what hounds are doing, so as to gain all we can by the turns in our favour. Thus it is obvious that a knowledge of hunting keeps us out of mischief and enables us to do less damage. But every now and then we read attacks on hunting which are obviously based on sentimental ignorance.

The latest subject is the treatment of hounds by the hunt servants. Now I have had, and have still, a great many friends among a class of men who are notable for their good qualities, their ability, and their integrity. Of course, young men are sometimes a little too rough with hounds, but the most successful huntsmen, and whippers-in, too, are those who have the gift of attaching hounds to them. I think we may take it as an established fact that hounds never do their best for a man who cannot win their affections. It is too funny to read of hounds escaping from kennel and dying miserably in a ditch because they were afraid to return. 1 wonder if people have any idea of the value of a well-bred foxhound. Perhaps they think because they are numerous, therefore they are cheap, and, like Beckford’s auctioneer, think a pack would be dear at a shilling a head. Some kind friend has been sending me curiosities of literature in the way of hunting correspondence; two I think are worthy of being remembered. One of the writers, wishing to say that at a particular juncture of a hunt the field refreshed themselves, wrote that a considerable number took St. Paul’s advice to Timothy, evidently not holding with the temperance lecturer who accounted for this by saying he supposed it was meant for outward application only. The other reported that a well-known pack ran a stag to earth.

When sport has been so good and the weather so bad, if we say that a particular pack has had sport, we do not mean to suggest that others have not, but only that it has come under our notice. Yet, when the weather is such that frosts make hunting uncertain, I do think the Belvoir have a little the best of it, so few are the days in the season when they cannot hunt in some part or other of their wide territory.

On a cold morning they met at Landyke Lane, on Friday, February 23rd. Scent was at first only moderate, but as the hours went on matters improved, and the day ended with a brilliant Belvoir burst from Hose Thorns. Hounds seemed to be catching their fox all the way to Clawson Thorns, the pace and drive growing greater as the field bustled along on the track of the flying hounds. It was almost twenty minutes from the start to the time when the fox escaped, owing to the number of fresh lines in the covert. Mrs. Clayton Swan’s horse slipped on the greasy turf and she had a nasty fall. Ash Wednesday is no longer a hunting day with the Belvoir, but in any case the ground was impossible for riding in the Midlands. Thursday was possible enough, but a most unpleasant day, and the pack I hunted with did little, and I confess to coming home early, fairly driven off by weather. In the Belvoir country things improved as the day wore on. The smallest field of the season, and a riding one, found themselves with a stout fox and a racing pack in front of them. It is a hilly country, and the fences held the field in check so that hounds could run without interference. The fox went straight into Freeby Wood. Ben Capell, taking a leaf out of the late Sir Charles Slingsby’s book, held the pack right round the wood. Then an advantage was gained and the pace became hotter than ever as the end drew near.

Not so fast, but even better as a hunt, was the run of Wednesday, March 7th! The Belvoir met at Sproxton, and went on to draw Lord Dysart’s coverts at Buckminster. These proved to be blank, but—Coston covert is only just outside—a fine clean fox, springing up, was driven across to Buckminster. With their fox running up wind, hounds drove right on to Gunby Gorse, which, it is needless to say, is in the Cottesmore.

When they came away it was clear that they had changed, for whereas the original fox had a full brush, the new quarry was a bobtailed one, but in time this one was changed for a well-known out-lier that has hitherto defied Thatcher, and which, by accident or design, choosing a line over some plough, defeated Capell also.

A curious day was March 3rd, when the Cottesmore met at Somerby Hall. The events threw some light on the habits of foxes in a much-hunted country. The hounds spoke in the first covert, but it was clear the fox had taken the hint and left some time before. A second fox from another covert slipped away unseen as hounds were thrown in, and his line, too, failed; lastly, a third fox was discovered in the tree in Stapleford Park; which has become quite a sure find. This causes one’s interest in the curious limitations of a fox’s mind. The two mentioned first were perhaps scared by the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and, it may be, the hoots of a motor-car, which must, one would suppose, in the Shires be quite a familiar sign of a coming meet. At all events, they were sharp enough to take a hint and make themselves scarce, but the tree-haunting fox or foxes of Stapleford have not yet found out that their enemies know of their hiding-place, and come straight for it.

What some people say was the fastest gallop of the season took place with the Quorn on March 5th, from Grimstone Gorse to Sleaford. The pace, the country covered, and the going were all good, yet there were, in fact, only four or five men really in it. The rest of the large field were practically out of it. It seems as if John Isaac, who is to have a well-deserved testimonial, was having good fortune in his last season. The Pytchley Wednesdays since Christmas have been unusually good, although, when one casts one’s mind back on them, it does not seem that any day rises above the level of good sport. Two points, however, we notice, that the bitch pack was worked well, and that, in conjunction with their huntsman, they made the best of whatever scent there is. So, Wednesday after Wednesday, the Pytchley followers have had a glorious day of sport to look back to, in the cream of their country. Another huntsman who retires at the end of the season, George Shepherd, has shown very good sport lately, his best run probably being from Sleaford, on Thursday, March 8th. Lord Charles Bentinck has been out to study the country, the run of the foxes, and to make acquaintance with the members of the Blankney Hunt. To return to Sleaford, the fox was lying out, but, once afoot, returned to Sleaford Wood. For an hour and a half, always at a fair pace, this gallant fox held on, and, with hounds close to his brush, found an impregnable refuge at last. Fortunately the line was not straight; had it been so, few indeed would have seen it.

Imagine Lincolnshire riding deep in this part of the country, where hairy fences and such ditches as they know how to dig hereabouts, abound. As it was, with the aid of a little luck and a great deal of perseverance, a fair number reached the end. It was a very enjoyable sort of hunt, an interesting bit of hound-work, and the huntsman intervened just at the critical moment with a most timely and well-judged cast.

If we are to search for a characteristic of this season it might almost be found in the readiness of foxes to take to the water. I should be afraid to say how many times foxes have swum across flooded rivers during the late hunting season. The River Nene, in the Northamptonshire country of the Fitzwilliam, has been crossed several times. The last fox that braved its swollen waters was one of three found at Lilford on March 10th. After running the fox right round the park, scent on the grass proved too good, and he boldly swam the River Nene at Wadenhoe. The object of this manoeuvre was successful, since, as once before, he gained so much that eventually he ran his pursuers out of the scent. The Fitzwilliam country is just now the best hunted country in England. It is probably the only country in England that could or would supply foxes and sport to four packs of hounds. First, there is the historic Milton pack, then Mr. Fernies’ is given some woodland days; Lord Exeter, with the help of occasional days in the Belvoir country, finds work for his pack there; and for a fortnight Lord Fitzwilliam took his hounds (bitch pack) to Milton, and hunted on alternate days with his cousin’s pack.

Lord Fitzwilliam’s have also had a good month, in spite of rough weather.

On March 1st they manifested their remarkable power of holding to their hunted fox in a strong woodland country. The fixture was at Blatherwycke, Mr. Stafford O’Brien’s place on the borders of the Woodland Pytchley and the Fitzwilliam countries. Finding in Hostage Wood, they hunted partly over the open, and a rough country it is hereabouts, and partly in the big coverts. There has been no such woodland hunting as this anywhere, hounds stuck resolutely to their fox with a most inspiring chorus—the Fitzwilliam are famous for their music—for an hour and a quarter, and rolled the fox over at last. Nor was this all. A second fox was roused. He slipped away some distance ahead of hounds, but they drove along to such purpose for twenty minutes, making the best of the scent, that by the time the fox had reached the wide woodlands known as the Bedford Purlieus they were close to his brush. A half-beaten fox in a most carefully preserved wood—these coverts belong to Lord Fitzwilliam—has several chances in his favour, and at least one other fox was afoot, but once more hounds held to the hunted one and proved themselves, as indeed they have done all this season, a most killing pack.

On Ash Wednesday the Old Berkeley West had rather a remarkable day’s hunting. They met at Hartwell. The bag for the day was one fox killed from Kimblewick after an hour’s good hunting; one badger hunted to ground in the open, and another one killed.

I think, however, that the run of the Warwickshire on February 22nd, from Shuckburgh, will remain as the best gallop of the month, and perhaps, all things considered, the greatest foxhunt of the season. The run was divided in three portions. The first an eager scurry of three miles or so over grass pastures and flying fences. Then came a period of hunting with a check of some length. Horses had to gallop for part of the time, but it was possible to choose one’s places in the fences. Lastly, there was a very stiff bit of country, with hounds running into their fox all the way.

We expect to hear of hunt changes in April, and there are plenty in prospect, but it shows the vitality of foxhunting that the countries which are vacant fill up so readily. On the courteous principle of ladies first, we may note that Mrs. Burrell has arranged to hunt the part of Northumberland held by the late Sir J. Miller two days a week at her own expense. This has been heartily accepted by the hunting folk of that section of the old N.B.H. country. The Cambridgeshire, an old county pack with a long record of sport, have a new master in Mr. Crossman. Colonel Sprot takes Captain Gilmour’s place with the Fife. He has promised so far as the circumstances of the country permit, to hunt three days a week. That charming bit of Irish-like hunting ground in the far west, known as the Four Burrow, though it makes no change—Mr. J. Williams has been Master for twenty-eight years—is to increase its hunting days from two to three a week. This is the direct consequence of the way foxes are preserved, and is worth noting, because in Cornwall the trapping which has formed so formidable a difficulty in some west country hunts has not here done any material damage.

A gloom was cast over Yorkshire hunting last month by the death of Captain J. R. Lane Fox, the much respected Master of the Bramham Moor. Captain Fox had been in failing health for some months, but no immediate danger was anticipated. On Sunday, February 25th, he had a seizure and he died the next morning, a couple of days before completing his sixty-fifth year.

It is just ten years since he succeeded his father as Master of the Bramham Moor Hounds, and it is unnecessary to say that during his tenure of office the old traditions of the Hunt were well maintained. Captain Lane Fox’s amiable temper and unfailing courtesy gained him a host of friends in all classes of society, and he will long be a missed man in the country with which the name of Lane Fox is so closely and honourably associated.

A biographical notice of the late Captain J. R. Lane Fox appears in another column.

The Bramham Moor had a nice hunt on Monday, February 12th, from Beckwithshaw Bar. After rather an unusually long draw for the country, they found in the Boar Holes and pointed for Swarcliffe, but a blinding storm came on, caused the fox to swing round at Penny Pot lane, and they hunted back slowly by Birk Crag and Ruddocks Wood, and finally marked the fox to ground in the quarry at Thirkell’s Whin. They found again in the Lake Plantation at Farnley, and at a good pace hounds rattled along over the Washburn, pointing for Leathley. Then they ran on by Riffa Wood, but bore left-handed for Stainburn Gile. Before reaching this stronghold the fox was headed, and, turning short back, hounds left Riffa Wood on the right and ran on by Bailey’s Whin and across the Stainburn road, where they got on good terms with their fox. He was viewed here and headed, and hounds checked and did no more good. Up to the check it was a sporting run over a sporting country.

The Holderness had a good gallop on Monday, February 19th, when they met at Brandesburton Moor. Nunkeeling Whin provided a stout fox, and hounds were scarcely in covert before they were away close at his brush. They streamed away to Billings Hill and thence by Dunnington to Dringhoe. Here they checked momentarily, but they righted themselves and ran on at a fine pace to Nunkeeling Whin, finishing the ring in a little under the hour. The fox was only just in front of them and had no time to dwell in covert, and they rattled along cheerily by Frodingham Grange, North Frodingham and Trickett’s Whin to Beeford Grange, where they rolled their fox over in the open.

The Sinnington commenced the month of March well. They met at Bowforth on the 1st, and, after a run from Muscoate’s Whin and round by Mr. Martin’s Farm, which ended in the fox giving them the slip, they went on to Jack Slater’s Plantation, where they found a straight-necked hill-fox, such as the Sinnington country is famous for. They ran first over a charming low country over the Ness road, and nearly to Nunnington, and then, twisting to the right, they ran on over the Riccal Beck and across the end of Riccal Dale. Then, at a famous pace, they ran by Con Howe, nearly to Carlton Village, where they swung to the left into Ashdale. They ran close past the main earths and over Birk Dale to the Griff Farm, where they checked at the road, but, recovering the line in an instant, they ran right up to the railings at Rievaulx Terrace. Here, unfortunately, the field halloaed them on to another fox, and the run came to an end, after a famous gallop of an hour and three minutes.

The York and Ainsty had quite an useful day’s sport on Tuesday, March 6th, when they met at Rufforth Village. According to arrangement, they went to draw the Bramham Moor Friday’s country, and found a brace of foxes in White Skye Whin. Unluckily, hounds divided, and seven couple went away with a fox in the direction of Bickerton Spring, and were soon stopped. The body of the pack ran on cheerily for a little short of a mile, pointing for Marston Station. Then the fox was headed, and they hunted him slowly back to White Skye Whin, where he beat them. They drew Wilstrop Wood blank, but found in the Rash hard by a brace of foxes, which they took across into Wilstrop Wood, and with one of which they went away slowly to Hutton Thorns, where scent failed. Then came rather a cheery run from the Crow Wood, by Rufforth Village into Rufforth Whin, whence they hunted back by the Crow Wood into Collier Stagg, and through it to Fairy Carrs, where they marked their fox to ground. They went to draw Collier Hagg, but, before hounds were in covert, a fox was halloaed away at the other side, and they ran at a good pace by Rufforth Village into Rufforth Whin. After a turn or two round the covert they went away again and hunted slowly back to Collier Hagg. Thence they took a line out on the Marston side, and, with a left-hand turn, pointed for Healaugh, and worked up to the fox and rolled him over on the Askham and Healaugh road, so making a satisfactory finish to a day in which there was a lot of hard work for hounds.

It appears that some errors crept into the account of this event, published in Baily’s for February, The Grafton Hunt has American-bred hounds and the Middlesex imported hounds. Each pack hunted on six days, and the strength of either was: American hounds, 6 couple; English, 18½ couple. Mr. Harry Smith, Master of the Grafton, has been kind enough to put us right on these points: he adds that the English hounds are drafts, principally from Mr. Fernie’s, and that the American pack, as the “Van Driver” conjectured, are pure-bred foxhounds, descended from imported English hounds. The American-bred hounds stand about twenty-two inches high, and are lighter in build than their imported relatives. Mr. Smith observes that “in America, where the scent is bad and the sun is hot, it is absolutely necessary to have a pack able to take up a cold trail from the night before, work it to the kennel and start the fox themselves. If they lose it on a dusty road or wall the same faculty for cold trailing is necessary.” The American method, in fact, is that in vogue on the fells, where hounds unkennel their fox in much the same way. Mr. Smith tells us that though his pack did not kill during the match, they killed three red and two grey foxes in the open during the two following weeks, hunting the same country.

BREEDING OF THOROUGHBREDS.

Captain W. Tower Townshend, Derry, Roscarberry, co. Cork, writes as follows: I have just read with much interest your article on “The Thoroughbred,” in Baily’s for February, which any man who has endeavoured to breed a good all-round thoroughbred must agree with, save that your correspondent does not include change of soil and air—to my mind a powerful factor in improving the race of pure-bred horses. We see during the last racing year what Irish-bred horses have done on the English Turf, and I need not tell you we have not a tithe of the fashionable blood over here that you have in England. While the late Duke of Westminster’s celebrated Bend Or was alive, the “Special Commissioner” of the Sportsman was constantly advocating that he should be sent to Ireland, when he predicted he would probably have sired another Ormond. I have no doubt, judging from my own experience, had the Duke done as the Sportsman advised, he would have done so. Some years ago I imported Town Moor, by Doncaster—Euxine, who, you will remember, ran third in Iroquois’ Derby, and then stood in the Queen’s stud at Hampton Court, where he got every chance with the very best mares, but never got any horse of exceptional merit. But during his first season in this country, when an old horse of 18 years, with the slenderest of chances, he bred Gogo to Endocia,^[12] a mare belonging to Lord Fermoy, that was generally acknowledged to be the best two-year-old in Ireland. Town Moor unfortunately died two years after reaching these shores, or no doubt after Gogo’s fame there would have been a great run on his services. I wish more of the big English breeders could be persuaded to send brood mares over here, and try the experiment of a complete change. I am convinced it would tell most advantageously on the vigour and stoutness of the coming young stock, as both the climate and soil of Ireland seem fitted by Nature for horse-breeding; the winters being so mild the mares can be left out all day and night till they foal, and the best of grass can be hired far cheaper than it can in England.

“Transatlantic” writes from New York as follows: Although there were not sufficient entries in 1905 to give a contest for the championship of polo, that game is advancing in the United States, not only in the number of players and of clubs, but in the excellence of methods. The repeal of the law against, and thus allowing of, crooking of mallets has proved popular. In this association there are now 542 players rated as active, and 54 players penalised as much as 4 goals, what might be the “Recent Form” list. Dr. Milburn, of Boston, has been advanced from 5 to 6 goals, and Dr. Chauncey, of New York, from 4 to 6 goals. The three highest handicaps at 9 goals are R. L. Agassiz, Foxhall Keene, and Larry Waterbury. In the class at 8 goals are only John Cowdin, Monty Waterbury, and Harry Whitney. The only one at 7 goals is Thos. Hitchcox. There are 35 clubs listed. Regular play has been going on during the winter at Burlinghame, California, and at Camden, South Carolina; and tournaments in the north will begin at the Lakewood New Jersey Club in March.

THE M.C.C. CRICKETERS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Despatches from the front have not been very reassuring, and the second so-called Test Match was lost by Mr. Warner’s team by the large margin of nine wickets.

The Englishmen lost because they did not score a sufficient number of runs; and their chief trouble throughout this unfortunate tour appears to come from the fact that their batting is extremely unreliable, and they are without the help of steady batsmen of the stamp of Tom Hayward or Quaife, who would go in first and stay there. Certainly Mr. Warner can go in first, but in South Africa he cannot always stay there, and on more than one occasion his side has had two wickets down with but a small score on the board, and this is always a demoralising state of affairs for a moderate batting side.

We understand that in their minor matches at home against clubs and schools it has been the policy of the M.C.C. to send a team which shall, more or less, and often enough less, be of relative strength or weakness to the other side, in order that the game may not be too one-sided. So that an error of judgment in estimating the strength of the opponents may cost the match.

It appears to us that in organising this team for South Africa, the M.C.C. authorities greatly underrated the strength of their opponents, and so from the point of view of the South Africans the tour has rather failed, since they have proved themselves a better lot of cricketers than the visiting team.

On the other hand, an English team touring in Africa has, for mercenary considerations, to play several games against odds in up-country places where the standard of cricket is very low indeed, and where, probably, the first-class African cricketers would never be seen. And for these purposes the more powerful the visiting team the more futile becomes the burlesque of cricket.

As proof of this we need only refer to a week’s work of Mr. Warner’s by no means powerful team. They beat fifteen of King William’s Town by an innings and 296 runs, the Englishmen scoring 415 runs for eight wickets against 75 and 44 by the fifteen. In the next match eighteen of Queenstown were beaten by an innings and 176 runs; the scores being 400 for eight wickets, as against 111 and 113 by the eighteen. For such a performance as this it would obviously not be worth the while of a first-rate cricketer to travel from England to King William’s Town, and yet for the games against All South Africa it is equally not worth while for a moderate cricketer to travel from England to Johannesburg.

Until recently the same difficulty beset the path of English teams touring in Australia, that they were sent to play ridiculous matches against battalions of bad players, and probably the M.C.C. in organising this tour found it difficult to persuade the best amateurs to devote so much time to a campaign which, roughly speaking, includes so few first-class matches. And so Mr. Warner apparently finds himself in the uncomfortable position of taking round a team too good for the country players and not good enough for the town players.

In the second Test Match the scoring was singularly low for a good matting wicket at Johannesburg. The Africans won with scores of 277 and 34 for one wicket, as against 148 and 160 by the M.C.C. team; and in the M.C.C. second innings eight men made only 16 runs between them, which reads like disappointing batting. On the other hand, eight of the Africans scored double figures.

The third Test Match found Africa starting well enough with 385, every one scoring double figures except Mr. Hathorn, who made 102. Thanks to a fine innings by Mr. F. L. Fane, who made 143, the Englishmen got to within 90 runs of their formidable opponents at the end of the second day’s play, but in this innings six men only scored 17 runs between them.

The third day of the third Test Match was good business for the Africans, who hit up 349 runs for the loss of only five wickets, and then dismissed Messrs. Warner and Hartley before the call of time, leaving the Englishmen 425 run to the bad with only eight wickets in hand. The English bowling was clearly to the liking of their opponents, for again, with the exception of the not-out men, all scored double figures. White 147, Tancred 73, Nourse 55, and Sinclair 48, doing most of the damage. Mr. Crawford could not get a wicket, and Hayes was not put on to bowl in the whole course of the match, and Lees with nine out of the fifteen wickets that fell was the most successful of our bowlers.

The last day’s play brought the match to its logical conclusion, and the M.C.C. team were easily beaten by 243 runs. Denton 61 and Crawford 34 being the only two men to score more than 20 runs.

An odd feature of the game was the success of the cricketers whose names begin with S. It is needless to say there were none on the English side, but the five who played for South Africa got all the wickets between them, and caught all the catches, bar two; for Shalders, Sinclair, Schwartz, Snooke, and Sherwell are the only African names which appear in the score of M.C.C. except Vogler and White, who made three catches between them. Snooke took twelve wickets in the match, and Sherwell caught five men at the wicket.

So the first three of the so-called Test Matches were all lost, each one by a bigger margin than its predecessors.

There can be but little interest left now in the tour of this M.C.C. team, which went to Africa practically asking for defeat, and has certainly suffered it. Probably the next time the South Africans desire to entertain a good cricket team they will invite an Australian team to come over and give them a good game, for the Australians can be trusted to bring their best men upon such an occasion, and that is the way to set about International cricket.

The recent headings in the newspapers, “England v. South Africa. Crushing Defeat of England,” are not very pleasant reading, and are not calculated to advance the prestige of English cricket, and it is our sincere hope that in future, should the Marylebone Club be ever again invited to organise a team to visit our cricket-playing Colonies, those who are entrusted with the selection of the players will send either the best or none at all.

It is unfair to the men themselves and to their Colonial hosts, and especially to English cricket, that a team such as the one at present touring in Africa should by any misnomer be regarded as representative of England.

It was a melancholy end which closed the career of Richard Humphrey, the famous Surrey batsman of the seventies. He was found drowned in the River Thames near Waterloo Bridge on February 24th, having been missing from his home for nearly a month.

“Dick” Humphrey was in his fifty-seventh year, and from the time that he first gained a place in the Surrey eleven he was always closely associated with cricket, at first as a very good batsman and afterwards as a coach and umpire. Tom Humphrey, the elder brother, made the family name famous in the cricket world, and the many long partnerships for the first wicket between Tom Humphrey and Harry Jupp made the fame of “the two Surrey boys.”

Unlike many of the mainstays of Surrey cricket, Dick Humphrey was a bona fide product of the county, and learned his cricket in common with many another great player at Mitcham. In 1870 he gained his first trial for Surrey, but, with the exception of a score of 82 against Cambridge University, his performances scarcely justified his promise. Next year he was much more successful, as his scores of 70 against Gloucestershire, 80 against Yorkshire, and 116 not out against Kent, bear ample evidence.

The year 1872 found Dick Humphrey at the top of his game, and in the very front rank of professional batsmen. He did well both at Lord’s and the Oval for the Players against the Gentlemen, and at the Oval, going in first, he was ninth man out for a score of 96. Towards the end of that season he scored 70 in each innings against the formidable bowling of Yorkshire when Tom Emmett and Allen Hill were at their best. Considering the difficulty of making runs in those days as compared to present day first-class cricket, we may well regard these two seventies as a much bigger performance than some of the double centuries which have been not infrequent in recent years. Unless we are mistaken, he scored over 1,000 runs in that season, with an average of something like 24 runs for forty-five innings.

Richard Humphrey never gained such a high measure of success again, although he continued to be a useful member of the Surrey team, for whom he played his last match in 1881.

He also visited Australia with the team taken out by Mr. W. G. Grace. He was a batsman of the academic and steady school, and, like most of that school, paid chief attention to careful defence, combined with some strokes on the off side. After his retirement from the active pursuit of the game he did a good deal of coaching, and amongst others some generations of boys passed under his notice at Clifton College. He also umpired very regularly, and for years was in the list of umpires for the county championship, and, but for his untimely death, he was to have acted as umpire in the second-class counties’ competition for next season.

Dick Humphrey was an amiable and pleasant companion, and his melancholy death comes as a shock to his many old friends.

On February 10th last Mr. Edward Hastings Buckland died at his residence, Southgate House, Winchester, after a long and most trying illness, which he had faced throughout with the most cheerful and patient courage.

He was born on June 20th, 1864, the youngest son of the Rev. Matthew Buckland, of Laleham; one of his brothers being Mr. F. M. Buckland, who scored a century for Oxford against Cambridge in the late seventies.

“Teddy” Buckland, as he was known to a wide circle of friends, was educated at Marlborough and New College, Oxford. His all-round cricket was of great service to his school, and in 1883 for Marlborough against Cheltenham he discarded his usual style of slow round-arm bowling for fast under-hand deliveries, by which he wrought great havoc and won the match.

His first year at Oxford found him a member of the very strong team, which, under Mr. M. C. Kemp, beat both the Australians and Cambridge. For four years Mr. Buckland did good work both with bat and ball for his University, his best seasons being 1886–87.

The ’Varsity match of 1886 is memorable for the large score made by Messrs. Key and Rashleigh for the first wicket in Oxford’s second innings, the former scoring 143 and the latter 107. The rest of the Oxford eleven were advised to get out as soon as possible, and so the score-sheet does not record any double-figure score in that innings, the third highest score being 9.

Cambridge, with 340 to make, were sent in for a quarter of an hour on the second evening, and played out that time for the loss of no wicket, and the gain of no run except an extra.

On the last day of the match the Light Blues offered a dogged defence, and late in the afternoon of the third day it looked as if Cambridge would save the game, as they had 196 on the board for the loss of but four wickets.

Then it was that Mr. Buckland carried all before him, for, going on with the score at 170 and a drawn game imminent, he took the last five wickets for only 14 runs, and Cambridge were out for 206 or so. This must rank as one of the most useful bowling performances ever done at Lord’s.

In 1887 Mr. Buckland had a great match for Oxford at the Oval, when he scored 148 and took seven wickets against Surrey at their best; and as a fitting crown to his good ’Varsity career he was selected to represent the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord’s.

It is sad to think that of the Oxford eleven of 1887, Mr. E. A. Nepean predeceased his colleague by only a few weeks.

Mr. Buckland played some matches for Middlesex after coming to London, where for a time he followed up his degree in the honour school of jurisprudence by the study of law. But fortunately for Winchester College and Wykehamists it was not long before he found himself appointed assistant master at that ancient foundation, with charge of the school cricket, and in this sphere his genius for the game and his irrepressible enthusiasm soon had a marked effect upon the fortunes of Winchester cricket. All his spare time was spent upon the cricket ground, and when he was not bowling at the nets he would be umpiring or taking part in a game, and the boys knew that his critical but encouraging eye was always upon them.

In the early nineties the fruit of his teaching was seen in some very fine teams that represented Winchester, and such distinguished cricketers as J. R. Mason, H. D. G. Leveson-Gower, Vernon Hill, the Cases, C. Wigram, and H. C. McDonell are only examples of the players he turned out.

Mr. Buckland was also a very good racquet player, one of the best public school players of his day, and at racquets he was able to assist considerably the Wykehamists.

He was one of the first young cricketers to turn his attention to the royal and ancient game of golf, and at this he speedily attained great proficiency, being quite in the front rank of cricket-golfers, with a low handicap at the best meetings.

Who will win the Boat Race? This is the all-engrossing topic in sporting circles just now, for the furore for the great “Water Derby” of the year appears more pronounced than ever in 1906. From the beginning of practice it has been obvious that Oxford would be quite as strong as their winning 1905 crew, at least, while the Cambridge crew would be faster than their last year’s combination. Exigencies of the press only enable comment to be made during their intermediate stage of work on the Upper Thames, and, so far, the Dark Blues are deservedly favourites. They are better together than their rivals, and therein lies their merit. Their greater uniformity consists not only in the rise and fall of the blades, but also, even more, in the action of the slides. It may sound heresy to say so, but the fact remains that of two crews—one with blades entering the water in unison, but slides worked at irregular times, and another crew with oars visibly irregular in some places, but slides all driven with one simultaneous kick—the latter will be faster in these days (ceteris paribus, as to physique and as to boats). The irregular time of the Cantab oars, or some of them, is a handicap; but a still greater drawback, so far as prolonged speed is concerned, is their want of uniform action in sliding. When paddling they work better together, and even when at full speed do not get ragged at once.

It is after some eight or ten minutes the uneven sliding tells most. Their reach shortens, the swing fails, and pace falls off. Taken individually, they are as good a set of men in a boat as the Oxonians. It is “as a crew,” that is to say, collectively, that they fail to hit it off so well. Were their throw back of the bodies for the first catch backed by a more timely leg-drive, and by a more vertical drop of the blades into the water, it would be much more effective. As it is, the less ostentatious, but firmer and more vertical entry of the Oxford oars in the water produces more lift on the boat, and more pace in the long run. For these reasons Oxford ought to outstay Cambridge, and repeat their 1905 victory. The complaint that the Dark Blues have nearly three stone more weight on bow side than on stroke is futile. This does not affect the trim of a racing ship if all catch together. Otherwise, such crack pair-oars as Messrs. Warre and Arkell and Messrs. Edwards-Moss and Ellison, &c., would not have immortalised themselves for pace and style at Henley. Oftener than not, however, the last fortnight’s practice has sufficed to upset the “voice of the prophets.” And it must be remembered that up to the time of writing neither crew has yet done any tidal-water work. Cambridge are just the crew to fall into shape at the right moment after looking rough for a long while, and their stroke, a well-known London R.C. man, is highly experienced over the historic reach. But the Oxonians will also attain a good deal more polish at Putney, hence their success appears the more probable. The crews will face the starter (Mr. F. I. Pitman) thus:—

Oxford: (Bow), G. M. Graham (Eton and New College), C. H. Illingworth (Radley and Pembroke), J. Dewar (Rugby and New College), L. E. Jones (Eton and Balliol), A. G. Kirby (Eton and Magdalen), E. P. Evans (Radley and University), A. C. Gladstone (Eton and Christ Church), H. C. Bucknall (Eton and Merton) (Stroke); L. P. Stedall (Harrow and Merton), (Cox).

Cambridge: (Bow), G. D. Cochrane (Eton and Third Trinity), J. H. F. Benham (Fauconberge and Jesus), H. M. Goldsmith (Sherborne and Jesus), M. Donaldson (Charterhouse and First Trinity), B. C. Johnstone (Eton and Third Trinity), R. V. Powell (Eton and Third Trinity), E. W. Powell (Eton and Third Trinity), D. C. R. Stuart (Cheltenham and Trinity Hall) (Stroke); R. Allcard (Eton and Third Trinity), (Cox).

As Mr. Allcard is rapidly putting on flesh, however, another coxswain may be necessitated for Cambridge this year.

With the close of March the cross-country running season came to an end. It has been a highly successful one, and it is now more than ever evident that the pastime is highly popular with young athletes, more particularly as a means of training for outdoor summer pastimes. Unfortunately, several of the old courses have had to be abandoned or altered owing to the spread of population and the consequent overgrowth of our larger cities. Yet we have still left to us a greater part of the old national course at Roehampton, and it was over a portion of this that the inter-university race, the first important contest of the season, was decided. With their traditional courtesy, the Thames Hare and Hounds, the pioneers of cross-country running, placed their headquarters at the disposal of the competitors, and their members also superintended the arrangements. The Light Blues were in great form and won very easily, A. H. Pearson, of Westminster and Queen’s, being first man home, and establishing a record of 41 mins. 11 secs. for the course. To the credit of A. R. Churchill, of Cambridge, stood the previous best, he having won last season in 42 mins. 17 secs. Churchill was not in residence, and did not run this season, but the Light Blues were strongly represented.

Marked improvement was shown by the Thames Hare and Hounds, whose running against the Universities was very meritorious, and whose membership has considerably increased. The old club stands aloof from all cross-country competitions, and now only takes part in friendly inter-club runs. It strives to maintain the true amateur spirit, and in doing so sets a worthy example to the younger clubs. Close by its headquarters are those of the Ranelagh Harriers who, like many of the older clubs, does not now hold open competitions, but yet always sends a team to take part in the Southern Counties Cross-country Championship. That of this season was held on new ground. Lingfield and Wembley Park have been favourite spots for the contest, but Imber Court, Thames Ditton, was this year selected. It is admirably suited for the purpose, for there is plenty of open country all round, and inside is a spacious half-mile track. As none of the competitors had run over the course before, it served as an admirable test of comparative ability. The entry was a best on record, no fewer than twenty-four clubs having been entered. A. Aldridge, of the Highgate Harriers, who was first man home in 1905, did not take part, while Alfred Shrubb was, of course, disqualified by his removal outside the pale of amateurism. Highgate Harriers again proved successful, and also had the honour of getting first man home, this being G. Pearce, whose fine running made him somewhat of a favourite for the National Championship at Haydock Park a few weeks later. In the North, the district championship was again won by the Crewe Harriers, but the Sutton Harriers, who finished second, had first man home. The Birchfield Harriers secured the Midland District Championship, and the Northampton Alpine Harriers supplied first man in G. W. Dunkley, who also won the previous year.

The meeting of Straw and Pearce in the National Championship proved most exciting, and Straw only won by five seconds, after a great race. In the last few yards Straw was almost done up, and had Pearce made his spurt a little earlier, the London runner might have won. Straw, however, struggled on to the finish, and by his victory, and the close placing of his fellow-members, scored a win for the Sutton Harriers. Highgate Harriers, who had held this important championship since 1902, were without the services of A. Aldridge, and were placed second. In this race 163 competitors, representing seventeen clubs, took part. The record number is 164 in 1895, when S. Cottrell, of the Thames Valley Harriers, was first man home, and the Birchfield Harriers proved the winning club. After the race a team was selected to represent England in the annual international cross-country race at Newport, the following Saturday. Straw and Pearce were naturally among the chosen team, and they again made a magnificent struggle for victory. On this occasion, however, Straw won more easily, the difference in time being thirteen seconds. England won the championship, which she has held since its institution in 1903, when, at Hamilton Park, Glasgow, she beat Ireland, the second team, by 53 points. This year she defeated Ireland by 62 points, the last-mentioned country being 20 points in front of Scotland, and 42 ahead of Wales. Among the individual runners who distinguished themselves, beside Pearce and Straw, were J. J. Daly, of the Galway Harriers, who came in fourth to Straw, and S. Stevenson, of the Clydesdale, who was tenth. T. Hughes, of the Newport Harriers, was first home for Wales.

The players who go to Muirfield in East Lothian to take part in the Open Champion Meeting are to be provided with competitions in other parts of Scotland. There is to be a tournament at Musselburgh, which used to be a championship green before the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers changed its quarters to Muirfield. In addition, a professional tournament is being arranged for the course on the Braid Hills, Edinburgh.

The foursome tournament among London clubs obtained an entry of thirty-two clubs, and is already in a forward state. Most of the clubs play their professional, but several are content with two amateurs, and it is quite on the cards that the tournament may be won by a club of the latter class. Neutral greens are used until the final round, in which the play must take place on the links of the Walton Heath Club.

In the preliminary matches the Oxford University team is giving a good account of itself. At Oxford it beat by 26 to 17 holes a strong team got together by Mr. W. M. Grundy, while it was successful also against a combination of Huntercombe players, which included Mr. Cecil K. Hutchison and Mr. R. E. Foster, the place of play being Huntercombe. The Cambridge University team, which includes Mr. A. G. Barry, the amateur champion, played a match over the Royal Worlington and Newmarket Club course with the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, and were defeated in the singles by seven matches to three, and in the foursomes by three matches to two.

The golfing season in the South of France attracted several of the best players in this country. The annual match play tournament under handicap at Pau was won by Mr. Charles Hutchings, of the Royal Liverpool Club, who carried the heavy handicap of plus four strokes. At Cannes the Gordon-Bennett Challenge Cup was won by Mr. A. J. Stanley, of the Littlestone Club. The Biarritz Club has elected the Earl of Dudley captain for the ensuing year.

The Vedrenne-Barker management at the Court Theatre has become one of the most interesting institutions in the dramatic world of London, and a very interesting feature of their enterprise is the production of “The Voysey Inheritance,” a play in five acts by Mr. Granville Barker.

Mr. Granville Barker has made a big reputation as an actor, and he seems in a fair way to gaining, it may be, still greater honours as a writer of plays. Certainly “The Voysey Inheritance” is full of merit and promise of greatness for the author. The story deals with the affairs of Mr. Voysey, a fraudulent solicitor, who has for years been living in luxury upon the funds which his confiding clients have entrusted to his hands for investment. His method is simple enough, and consists of paying the annual interest out of the capital and financing himself with the funds so long as they last. His son and partner, Edward Voysey, discovers this, and, being a conscientious solicitor, remonstrates with his father. The speculative and peculative parent, however, explains that this is the traditional method of business in the office of Voysey and Son, and is really the best in the interests of the clients, since it is more comforting for them to draw their interest as regularly as can be managed than to learn the sad news that their capital is gone.

In the second act we see the Voysey family chez eux at Bramleyfield, Chislehurst, ten of them altogether; and in their varied personalities Mr. Barker has given us a remarkably clever study of the later Victorian upper-middle class. The Voyseys may be distantly connected with the Ridgeleys, whom Mr. Pinero has recently introduced to London; but we think they are a very much more interesting family, for whereas one Ridgeley is very like another, each member of the Voysey family is full of individuality.

The third act shows the Voysey family in solemn conclave after the funeral of their father, who has been sent to his last resting-place by a sudden chill. Edward explains the unfortunate financial position of the house of Voysey, and indeed he is in a position deserving of the greatest sympathy as sole surviving partner malgrÉ lui in an old-established and fraudulently flourishing solicitor’s office.

To please his people and to do the best he can for his clients, Edward accepts the Voysey inheritance, and devotes his life to an attempt to put things right.

This is difficult enough, and when some creditors become anxious and ask for their capital to be paid off the Voysey business is in a worse way than ever. However, the greatly harassed Edward is consoled by an avowal of love from the young lady to whom for a long time he had been accustomed to offer his hand without success, and the end of the play leaves him engaged to be married, although still weighed down by the inheritance. The play is like all productions under the Vedrenne-Barker management, admirably acted throughout. Mr. Fred Kerr gives an excellent study of Voysey pÈre, so plausible in his defence of his grave irregularities, and so benevolent when we see him in the bosom of his family. Mr. Charles Fulton is at his best as Major Booth Voysey, a very flamboyant and truculent warrior who commands attention whenever he speaks. The author himself plays Edward Voysey, and his interpretation of the part must be correct, although for ourselves we would have felt more sympathy for a hero who seemed a little less like a model boy from the Y.M.C.A. With all his nobility of nature we must not forget that Edward Voysey is a solicitor of some years’ standing.

The ladies of the company are all admirable, and the performance of Miss Florence Haydon, the dear deaf old mother of the Voyseys, is simply charming. And a proof of the merit of “The Voysey Inheritance” is that people generally seem to want to see it again.

At a largely attended meeting held at the Royal Agricultural Hall on February 13th, Mr. J. Sidney Turner, the Chairman of the Kennel Club, presented Mr. E. W. Jaquet, who has been the Secretary since 1901, with a cheque for 400 guineas, an address on vellum, and a silver tea and coffee service, together with a tray, which had been subscribed for by over 400 members of dog clubs and ladies and gentlemen who are interested in the exhibition and the breeding of dogs.

According to the Reading Mercury and Berks County Paper, the South Berks on February 15th had an exciting and unpleasant experience. Hounds met at Woodley, and hunted a fox on to Bulmershe Lake, then covered with ice of very unequal thickness. The fox apparently ran across in safety, but two of the pursuing pack, going over thin ice, went through and were at once in imminent danger. The couple, however, managed to get their fore-feet on the ice, and the Hon. Secretary, Mr. W. J. Henman, with some assistance, launched an old boat and proceeded to smash through with the aid of crowbars. Proceedings were, naturally, somewhat slow, but, happily, the hounds were reached in time and taken ashore.

We have to record the death of the Right Hon. A. F. Jeffreys, M.P., which occurred on February 14th at his residence, Burkham House, Alton, Hants. Mr. Arthur Frederick Jeffreys was born in 1848. At one time Vice-President of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and President of various agricultural societies, Mr. Jeffreys was recognised in the House as an authority on topics connected with the land. The deceased gentleman was a good all-round sportsman; at Oxford he played in his college eleven (Christ Church), and later for the M.C.C., and also for the Hampshire team in the seventies. He gained his blue at Oxford for athletics, and won the quarter-mile against Cambridge in 1869; he was a good shot, fond of hunting, and a keen preserver of foxes.

At the Leicester repository on February 17th, twelve hunters, formerly the property of the late Sir James Miller, were sold; Cave 450 gs., Nipper 430 gs., Nobbie 340 gs., The General 260 gs., Sans Loi 125 gs., and Merry Boy 100 gs., were the principal prices, the average for the twelve being £175. On the same day Mr. Hugh Owen sold Bentinck, 350 gs.; Toffy, 250 gs.; and Caliban, 200 gs. There was a large gathering at the same establishment on February 24th, when Lord Hamilton of Dalzell sent up a number of hunters. The chief prices were: Stokes, 430 gs.; Phillip, 380 gs.; Pickpocket, 200 gs.; Governor, 180 gs.; Hamos, 120 gs.; and Warwick, 100 gs. Captain E. York (Royal Dragoons) sold the following: Warwick, 135 gs.; Cheesecake, 105 gs.; The Professor and Diana, 100 gs. each.

Fulmen, by Galopin, bred by the late Prince Batthany in 1880, died at the Gorlsdorf Stud on February 18th. Sold to Count Redern in 1889, Fulmen was taken to Germany, and proved a very successful sire, his stock having won over £150,000 between 1893 and the end of last season.

A well-known sportsman in the Shires passed away on February 26th, when Mr. Hutchinson Dalby Hunt died at Caldecott at the advanced age of 91 years. A keen hunting man, Mr. Hunt attended the meets of hounds until within four years ago; he was a good all-round supporter of sports and pastimes, and in his time had bred and trained some successful horses; Playfair, winner of the Grand National in 1888, being bred by him.

We have to record with regret the death of Captain James Thomas Richard Lane Fox, which occurred at Bramham on February 26th, after a brief illness. The deceased, who was born in 1841, was Master of the Bramham Moor Foxhounds and a Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire. A portrait with biographical sketch appeared in Baily for February, 1906.

A correspondent, writing to the Field of March 3rd, says: “An interesting incident happened on Monday, when the Garth Hounds ran a fox into the ice-house in Mr. Garth’s park. The house is thatched with straw, and a bitch called Gaylass sprang on to the thatch, tore it open, seized the fox, and brought him with her down to the ground into the middle of the pack.” Gaylass is by Cheshire Partner out of Mr. Mackenzie’s Gratitude, and was bought by Mr. Gosling at Mr. Pennefeather’s sale.

For the nineteenth successive year the forage arrangements at the London Spring Horse Shows at the Royal Agricultural Hall have been carried out in the most expeditious and satisfactory manner by Messrs. Nickolls and Baker, 18, Mortimer Street, London, W. The work was performed with all the regularity and efficiency that come from long experience and personal attention to the details.

During the Council meeting of the Football Association, held on March 12th, Mr. C. W. Alcock, who was for many years Hon. Sec. and subsequently elected a Vice-President, was presented by his colleagues with a handsome gold watch as a small token of esteem on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of his unbroken service to Association football. The presentation was made by Lord Kinnaird in an admirable speech, and was supported by Messrs. J. C. Clegg (Chairman) and C. Crump. Mr. Alcock, in his reply, referred to the good football had done to millions of people, inducing them to spend their time in the open air and away from possibly squalid surroundings.

Captain W. G. Smyth, J.P., of South Elkington Hall, Louth, Lincolnshire, had, says the Sportsman, his 150th ride to hounds this season on March 10th. He has hunted with five different packs.

Writing to the Field from the Frensham Pond Hotel, Mr. G. A. W. Griffiths gives the following: An extraordinary find here last Saturday (March 10th) may perhaps interest many of your angling readers. My son, seeing, as he thought, a dead duck floating on the water took boat and went for it, but found, to his great surprise, two pike locked together by the jaws—of course dead. Naturally the incident has caused much local interest, and several persons came along yesterday to see for themselves the strange partnership. The fish weigh about 2 lb. and 4 lb. respectively, and the very curious part is that the head of the larger is crammed into the mouth of the smaller to its utmost holding capacity, rendering a further extension of the latter’s jaws impossible. The general theory is that a desperate fight (certainly to a finish) was the cause of so singular an incident.

We regret to record the death of the veteran huntsman, Frank Goodall, which occurred at the residence of his son, at Acton, on March 16th. Goodall was seventy-five years of age.

The Duchess of Sutherland had an alarming experience at the meet of the Quorn Hounds on March 16th, at Frisby-on-the-Wreake. Just as hounds were moving off to draw Cream Gorse, her grace’s horse slipped up, and fell on its side, and the duchess was thrown right into the midst of a crowd of motor-cars, carriages and horses. She sustained some injury to one leg, and could take no part in the day’s sport, being conveyed in her motor-car to her hunting quarters, Pickwell Manor.

In the unavoidable absence of the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Shrewsbury made a presentation to Mr. W. Brown, of Nantwich, in recognition of an act of gallantry displayed during a recent run of the South Cheshire Foxhounds. Mr. Reginald Corbet, the Master, had endangered his life in attempting to save three hounds from a deep and flooded stream in the neighbourhood of Nantwich, when Mr. Brown plunged in and rescued the exhausted Master. The presentation consisted of a handsome silver tray with tea and coffee service.

Major Deacon, the Master of the East Essex Foxhounds, sustained a nasty accident. While taking a high hedge, his horse fell back upon him. The muscles of his leg were strained and bruised, and he was otherwise injured. It is feared he will be unable to hunt again this season.

The inhabitants of Goosnargh (Lancashire) organised a hunt after a fox, which they assumed was responsible for the disappearance of many prize poultry lately. The thief, however, says the Sportsman, was found to be a fine dog badger, weighing nearly 28-lb., which was trapped in his hole, together with his family, at Blake Hall.

Among the stands at the Horse Shows at the Royal Agricultural Hall we notice, as usual, that of the Molassine Co., Ltd., of 36, Mark Lane, London, E.C. This firm has the pleasure of counting the owners of many of the prize-winning horses among its customers, a good testimony to the value of the food. The champion mare at the Shire Horse Show, Sussex Bluegown, we understand has been fed on Molassine Meal.

TURF.

RACQUETS.

March 9th.—At Prince’s Club, the Military Championship Doubles; 2nd Batt. Highland Light Infantry (Lieut. H. Balfour-Bryant, M.V.O., and Lieut. P. Bramwell-Davies, the holders) beat 4th. Batt. King’s Royal Rifles (Major S. F. Mott and Lieut. G. T. Lee) by four games to one.

March 17th.—At Prince’s Club, the Military Championship Singles: Major S. H. Sheppard, D.S.O. (Royal Engineers), beat Lieut. H. Balfour-Bryant, M.V.O. (2nd Batt. Highland Light Infantry), the holder, by three games to two.

COURSING.

February 23rd.—The Waterloo Cup, Mr. H. Hardy’s f. d. Hoprend, by Forgotten Fashion—Heirloom, beat Mr. S. S. Death’s w. bk. d. Dividend Deferred, by Grampus—Dark Dame.

February 23rd.—The Waterloo Purse, Mr. R. J. Hannam nom. (Mr. A. Forster’s) f. b. Formula, by Pateley Bridge—Forest Fairy, and Mr. W. Ward nom. (Mr. T. Graham’s) Game ’Un, by Tara—Glenvera, divided.

February 23rd.—The Waterloo Plate, Mr. H. Birkbeck’s bd. b. Neolithic, by Father Flint—Filagree, and Mr. R. H. Whitworth nom. (Mr. H. Hardy’s) bd. d. p. Howtown, by Father Flint—Heirloom, divided.

FOOTBALL.

February 17th.—At Queen’s Club, Oxford v. Cambridge, latter won by 3 goals to 1.†

February 17th.—At Belfast, Ireland v. England, latter won by 5 goals to 0.†

February 24th.—At Dublin, Ireland v. Scotland, latter won by 13 points to 6.*

March 3rd.—At Edinburgh, Scotland v. Wales, latter won by 2 goals to 0.†

March 3rd.—At Aldershot, Corinthians v. Army, drawn, 1 goal each.†

March 7th.—At Oxford, the University v. United Services, former won by 5 goals 3 points to 1 goal 1 try.*

March 10th.—At Queen’s Club, Royal Navy v. The Army, Army won by 5 goals to 2.†

March 10th.—At Belfast, Ireland v. Wales, former won by 8 points to 3.*

March 10th.—At Exeter, Devon v. Durham (County Championship final), former won by 11 points to 0.*

Early Carriages and Roads

In this Publication, attention has been given to the early history of wheeled conveyances in England and their development up to recent times. With Seventeen Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net; post free, 2s. 4d.

Thoroughbred and other Ponies

With Remarks on the Height of Racehorses since 1700. Being a Revised and Enlarged Edition of Ponies Past and Present. With Ten Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 5s. net; post free, 5s. 4d.

Hunter Sires

Suggestions for Breeding Hunters, Troopers, and General Purpose Horses. By I. Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. II. Charles W. Tindall. III. Right Hon. Frederick W. Wrench. IV. W. T. Trench. Illustrated, octavo, paper covers, 6d. net; post free, 7d.

Riding and Driving Horses, Their Breeding and Rearing

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Horse-Breeding in England and India, and Army Horses Abroad

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The Great Horse or War Horse

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The Harness Horse

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Modern Carriages: Passenger Vehicles in the Victorian Era

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Young Race Horses—suggestions

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Small Horses in Warfare

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Horses for the Army: a suggestion

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Horses Past and Present

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Poultry Keeping on Farms and Small Holdings

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Animal Painters of England

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Life of George Stubbs, R.A.

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