keeping a sharp look-out for the geese, for which a noble-looking stanchion-gun was fitted with proper apparatus, loaded, and ready to do its duty.

We were cruising about a long time before finding the objects of our search, when my friend, with his eagle eye, and assisted by a powerful telescope, suddenly called out, "There they are! Bear away, Captain, for the south-west; and look sharp to your bearings, for there's some thick weather coming, or I am very much mistaken."

On drawing nearer to the birds, we were delighted to find it was the identical gaggle of black geese we were in search of; there must have been several hundred: they were sitting scattered over a large space of water, and in two lots. The usual precautions were taken, and the utmost stillness prevailed aboard the yacht. My friend insisted on my taking the first chance at them, notwithstanding that he had not had a shot all the morning. I felt, therefore, in most anxious suspense, as we approached nearer and nearer the geese. Not a bird appeared to take the least alarm, and we were within a hundred yards. Not a whisper was uttered, nor a perceptible motion made on deck; everyone knew the whole chance depended on perfect stillness. Another second, and the whole gaggle rose simultaneously from the water: at the same instant, the skilful helmsman Juffed the yacht into the very eye of the wind; I anxiously, and with breathless expectation, watched the opportunity as the whole gaggle swept across the bows of the yacht, and with my best skill made deliberate aim at the nearest and closest lot, when "Bang!" roared the stanchion-gun, and in an instant the deck was alive with excitement, to learn the result of the fatal charge. Eleven were killed dead, and there appeared to be as many more winged and wounded.

Whilst the men were preparing to pick them up, and getting the boat ready to look after the cripples, we took careful note of the direction taken of those which flew away. I remained aboard the yacht with the captain, whilst my friend went in the boat with his double-barrelled shoulder-gun in pursuit of the cripples, and to pick up such of the dead ones as had not been taken up by the yacht. The cripple-chase lasted upwards of half-an-hour, during which my friend shot three of the winged birds, and I had shot two from the yacht; when, no others being in sight, and the atmosphere becoming thick from the falling snow, which was now driving down in playful earnest, we abandoned the cripple-chase, and steered in the direction where we last saw the geese flying. Meanwhile the stanchion-gun was reloaded, and we were again ready for another shot.

The snow continuing to fall in large flakes, with the south-east wind, which blew a moderate breeze all the while, so darkened the atmosphere, that we were obliged to steer entirely by compass, as no land-mark was visible, and the yacht being several miles from land, we had nothing else to guide us. After knocking about in this manner upwards of two hours, without finding any further trace of the geese, and the weather looking as thick and threatening as ever, we thought it advisable to abandon the pursuit, and seek a shelter, by making the best of our way to the river from whence we came,

the entrance to which, after much difficulty, we succeeded in finding. Having gone a few miles up the stream, the snow ceased falling so thickly; and it being then nearly five o'clock, we thought it highly probable we might get a shot on our passage, particularly as the wind had been blowing directly from the sea up the river, and with thick flakes of snow-the most favourable weather of all for wild-fowl shooting on the eastern coast.

"Look out a-head, sir!" said a man from before the mast. "There's a fine lot of small birds under our lee-bow."

"Now, my friend," said I, "there's a chance for you."

"But we have large shot in the stanchion-gun," said my friend; "which will do but little execution."

"You can't help that now," I suggested; "there is no time to draw the charge; we shall be all amongst them in one minute."

Not another word was spoken, as my friend immediately cocked the great gun, and prepared for a shot. The yacht was running so rapidly before the wind, that the old skipper thought it best, instead of luffing-up in the usual way the moment the birds rose, to bear up slightly, and run all amongst them, which he did, so that whilst they were taking wing, the yacht was still gaining several yards upon them every moment, and on my friend pulling trigger, we were certainly within fifty yards of the whole flight.

"Too close by far, for the stanchion-gun !" I called out, just as the report dinned through my ears. And so it proved, for there were but four fell to the shot. Had we had small shot in the barrel, and put up the birds twenty or thirty yards farther off, the probability is that a score at least would have fallen to our lot. It was a large flock of widgeon. Of the four which fell, we recovered but three; the other, being only winged or slightly wounded, evaded us for some time, and we eventually abandoned the chase, to look after our dinner ashore.

Such is a faithful account of the only good day's wild-fowl shooting I have had this season; and, indeed, good fortune seems to have favoured me considerably, as it appears to have been the only day of real wild-fowling weather we have had (south of Lincolnshire) throughout winter. The day following it was mild as May; and the snow, which had spread its white flakes over the earth to a depth of several inches, almost entirely disappeared within twenty-four hours afterwards.

I shall long remember the 2nd of February, 1858, not only as the day on which Her Royal Highness the Princess of England left these shores, with her royal husband the Prince Frederick William of Prussia, but I shall also remember the day as one worthy of note in my sporting diary, and on which I was highly successful in a sport I have always taken great delight in, from the days of earliest boyhood.

HOUNDS AND HUNTING:

THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.

BY JOHN MILLS,

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN," BTC., ETC.

CHAPTER II.

A succession of to-morrows treading on the heels of yesterdaysthese units forming the great total of account-work out the changes, almost imperceptibly progressive, in men, manners, and things. The sports and pastimes of old, as followed in the feudal times, gradually gave place to others of a less rude description. When the fowlingpiece became introduced, falconry was neglected, and the careful breeding of dogs to find and stand at game, usurped the functious of those who attended and trained the belled and hooded tassel. Forest and woodland becoming partially cleared as agriculture advanced, and the continued storms of the fine old troublesome times ceasing to drag the retainers from occupations of a peaceful nature, hunting no longer partook of that war-like tendency when a Baron, more than ordinarily fierce, published a manifesto that he would trespass upon his neighbour's chase, and decimate his herds, in spite of even the King himself. Sword and buckler were thrown aside. The spearhead rusted on the wall, and the spider spun a woof strong enough for the bow never to be thrummed by archer good again.

At first, it would appear from the chronicles left for our guidance, that the stag alone was deemed worthy of hunting with hounds, and the fox and hare succeeded when the face of the country became so far cleared and enclosed as to leave few localities sufficiently wild and solitary for the antlered denizen of the forest and moor to take refuge in. At the present time the only remaining waste lands in England, roamed over by the red deer in his native state, are Dartmoor and Exmoor. Here he may still be seen in all his graceful beauty, and unharboured, as of old, sweeping over the greensward, fleeing for life or liberty, the desired object, sometimes, being to take and secure him for the enclosed deer-park.

By that best of monitors, experience, it was discovered that good and effective as the pure bloodhound was, in the primitive method of hunting before described, his speed was not good enough to cope with the fleet powers of the game in the open, when "pace" became one of the leading features in sport. For generations, however, the talbot only was used; and until the fox and hare were added to the objects of chase, no attempt was made to breed lighter and faster hounds. Even within little more than a quarter of a century, the deer in the West of England was hunted by a pack of pure talbot hounds, which were sold and sent into Germany for the purpose of being entered to wolves. From some kennel mismanagement, however, they degener

ated, and eventually became extinct. For strength and beauty, and melody of his deep-toned tongue, the old English bloodhound had not competitor, and his powers of scent were acute in the extreme; but possessing no taste whatever for lifting his nose from the ground, his movements, by degrees, descended in the scale of popularity, until "the thing" was considered "too slow" for him to take any share in wearing down the game between sun-rise and sun-set. And yet what would his successors be called, in these railway and electric telegraph times? The flyers of the powder and pigtail age were regarded fast enough for anything given with breath to stand before them; but how terribly afflicted with "the slows" would such be considered now!

The striking difference between the head and front of sports-that of foxhunting-in years gone by, and that of the present day, may be described in a brief sentence. With our forefathers, minutes were occupied in finding, and hours in killing; and with us hours are consumed in finding, and minutes in killing. The rule is exactly reversed, although many exceptions will necessarily be found. In others details, too, the features are equally opposed. The meet invariably was appointed at daybreak, and not between the luxurious hours of ten and eleven. There were no second horses out, in the "powder and pigtail age," and, indeed, no demand for them; for although a fox found at cockcrow might be seen dragging his brush nearly worn down by noon, the work cut out was little harder than ploughing through stiff clay, although the pace might be an improvement upon that required in turning up the arable. Hounds neither capable nor required to force a fox at anything like speed had to depend entirely upon their noses, and instead of flying as they now do, in a level, compact body, so that "a table-cloth might cover them," with three or four couples at most feeling for the scent on the line, each accomplished his own task, and refused to move an inch on the credit of his companions leading the way. Every hound, therefore, being a line hunter, slow and sure was the method by which Crafty had to yield to his pursuers-patience and perseverance.

However accomplished the animal portrait painters of the present day may be, none could have been less so, it may fairly be conjectured, than those directing their attention to illustrating our national sports in the days of old. That hounds and horses-to say nothing of men -belonged to that class known as "the heavies," there cannot be a doubt; but that such sterns should curl over such noses, and such legs should be expected to carry anything but sacks of flour, as may invariably be seen in these attempts on canvass to "hold the mirror up to Nature," proclaim themselves to be nothing more nor less than eminent failures. The gigantic brass horns, too, slung over the shoulders of the funny-looking horsemen, with pigtails sticking rigidly out from between the edge of the black velvet caps and collars of their scarlet coats, must surely have existed only in the imagination of the artist.

And this leads to the consideration as to when and how the scarlet coat became adopted as the royal livery for a right royal sport. For all that we can learn, in tale or history, green was the original colour worn in all sylvan sports; and so long as keeping concealed

was necessary, in order to obtain close shooting at the driven deer, no better, perhaps, could be chosen. When, however, this ancient pothunting system was succeeded by the fairer one of a less remote age, a change from the primitive sombre hue was made to showy scarlet, and, as in most instances where a decided alteration in dress of any kind becomes the fashion, the Court set the example. In the reign of the Second George, Windsor Park was the introductory scene of the Royal huntsman, whippers-in, and yeomen-prickers appearing in frocks of scarlet cloth; and doubtlessly, the attractive effect produced rendered the general adoption of it afterwards by the sporting "puffs" of those days, and subsequently by the successors to their saddles.

Chance, or what is called so from an unexpected cause producing a corresponding effect, rendered the fox to be deemed, in the first instance, an animal worthy of a more noble fate than the trap or pellet. If there be truth in the tale-and there is no reason to cast imputations of doubt upon it-reynard qualified himself for honnds in this manner:

A Yorkshire Knight, whose staghounds often pressed the deer over Knavesmire, was returning home on, to him as he thought, one of the unluckiest days of his life, having tufted from early dawn to almost dewy eve without finding. The gradual decrease of the game on his manor had long proved a source of the gravest annoyance to this Yorkshire Knight, and he apprehended that the time was not far distant when a sphynx might as well be drawn for, as a stag or hind. The anticipated period seemed to be commencing with this the first blank day, and he was cogitating deeply, and even bitterly, at the march of those pioneers Industry and Enterprise, whose ploughshare and axe were driving the red deer from his haunt, and leaving him in the miserable-not to add ridiculous-position of a master of hounds with nothing to hunt, when a bolt from Fate, quick and unerring, drove his thoughts in a totally opposite channel.

"Humph!" ejaculated the Yorkshire Knight, as the least ambitious hound in his pack feathered her stern, and poking her nose close to the ground held it there long enough to take root had it been vegetable. In the full knowledge that no harm could be done, and possessing an equally strong faith that not the smallest perceptible atom of benefit would arise, the Yorkshire knight broke the silence of the scene with a "Ye-o, there, lass! Ye-o, there, Priestess!"

To the cheer Priestess made a response by throwing tongue, when her companions clustered round and about her, and consulted with their noses what the cause was, that had left an impression on the sensitive olfactory organs of the least ambitious hound in the Yorkshire knight's pack. Not one, however, joined Priestess in her expression of glad tidings, but indignantly left her to prosecute her inquiries alone and unaided. In the belief that she might be left, without the loss being felt to any great extent, the Yorkshire Knight proceeded on his way homewards without giving himself the trouble even to touch the great brass horn slung across his shoulders as a hint for Priestess to join her companions without loss of time, if the kennel-door was not to be closed upon her-for that night, at least. Indifferent, however, to this neglect, Priestess at length lifted her nose, and crashed through a strong patch of gorse with as much music as one tongue