lies far away on the western extremity of the island, where the Irish Channel and the Carnarvonshire mountains are visible the whole time. I have every year had one walk by myself on this beat, which takes a very long day, and is in parts very rough walking, and in average seasons I have generally managed to get from ten to twelve brace on it. I could have done the same this year; but I left off shooting when I had got eight brace, thinking that as birds were scarce, I was not expected to kill many more. But I had many more chances.

The partridge-shooting there is very pretty sport, either with a spaniel or a pointer. Long narrow fields of stubble and turnips run up between high "banks," as they are called here, being really masses of stone clothed with fern, heather, gorse, and brambles. On ground like this it is easy to scatter birds, but very difficult to mark them; and I wish for no better sport than hunting for a broken covey with a good dog among these rocks and hollows. Sometimes, if a pointer or setter, you catch sight of him on the topmost stone, drawn up stiff and well-defined against the sky-line, the birds probably being just underneath him among the thick grass and rubbish under the stone wall which runs round the base of the rock. Having climbed up to him, you then have to descend again over the slippery stones, with the great probability that the birds will rise just as you are poising yourself on a loose fragment. It requires all one's nerve to shoot well in such circumstances. Then at other times the keeper will summon you rapidly round the corner, to find Ponto or Carlo curled round like a fried whiting, with his head nearly meeting his tail, in a narrow

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place where there is hardly room for him to stand at all. There is a brace of birds under that blackberry bush. The keeper pokes his stick in: out come the birds, and twirl rapidly round the steep bank to your right. One is stopped quickly; the other you catch just as he is disappearing, and are not certain whether you have killed him or not till Brian, who is told off for this particular duty, brings him back in triumph. These are moments which repay the partridgeshooter for many long and blank hours in a bad season.

But a good many birds, in twos and threes, have gone towards the bog which lies just below, and where, God willing, as the Baron of Bradwardine says, we may meet with a snipe. Partridges are very fond of the dry places in these bogs, and we get half-a-dozen pretty shots in crossing it, besides a snipe and a landrail; and then on to some large turnip-fields beyond, whence we hope again to drive birds into the clefts and crags lying on the other side of them. From eight to twelve brace of birds killed after this fashion are worth ten times the number bagged on ordinary ground, whether over dogs or not.

There is only one drawback to this sport in Anglesey, and that is the number of dogs kept by the small farmers. Every little holder, with his twenty or thirty acres of land, though he owns neither sheep nor cow, thinks himself entitled to keep two, and sometimes three or four, half-starved mongrels, who get their living in the fields. I was once talking to the tenant of the farm where I was shooting, when a big dog, not his own, suddenly crossed the road in front of us, as if he had just come out of the turnip-field I was about to enter, and went into another which

did not belong to us. I asked my friend how he could expect to have any game if loose dogs were allowed all over the place like that one? The man replied, as in excuse and pity for the dog, "Well, sir, it is bad; but you see, poor thing, he's got nothing to do." This was capital a piece of unconscious testimony to the justice of my complaint which was worth a mine of gold. The dog had nothing to do; his owner didn't want him therefore he beat all the adjoining fields for his amusement, if not for his dinner. This is the case with more than half the dogs in the island. They kill hares in the breeding seasons, when the does fall an easy prey to them. As likely as not, they kill young partridges when they have a chance; and of course in marauding over the fields I have described, they drive away all the coveys. Personally I would make some sacrifice for "the poor man's dog," but not for the poor man's pack. That is quite another thing. It is ridiculous to say that a farmer of twenty acres, with two cows and a goat, can require three or four dogs, or even one dog, for his business. One is quite enough

for a friend and a companion. The rest are kept for poaching, and spoiling sport. I have been told by many of the large dairy-farmers in the island that where herds of cows are kept, dogs do more harm than good. They are of course wanted for sheep; but none of the smaller occupiers, who are the chief offenders, have any sheep. The dogs, as my friend said, have nothing to do, and, being idle, get into mischief.

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Alas! it is all over now. have had my outing. I looked my last on glen and mountain, brook and bog, wood and crag, from the windows of the Irish express, as it rushed past them at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and now the only consolation I can find is sitting in my arm-chair recalling all my pleasant experiences, and living that fortnight over again in imagination, as I commit my reminiscences to paper. I thank my stars that I am able to do this. It softens the pangs of parting, and makes me even love my writing-table for the time being, though regarded generally as a hard taskmaster.

RUSTICUS URBANUS.

I have often been struck since with the truth of the remark. In studying a man's life, even when we give ourselves credit for taking into account the action of environment, we look upon that environment as a fixed quantity, and fail to recognise that it is developing just as surely as the man himself is. Nay, it even happens repeatedly that we give the individual credit for the natural evolution of the medium in which he lives, and, when his surroundings change, we say, "How much he has accomplished!"

This truth seems to me particularly applicable to the present state of the woman question. When we reflect upon the great improvement in the position of women which the last thirty years have seen, we are perhaps too much inclined to regard it simply as a proof of the development of the sex, whereas surely, în itself, this improvement is not so much an evolution as a change of surroundings. Our girls do good work at school and college, they win high honours in the field of open competition with men, their names are in every mouth; but did not their mothers and grandmothers do good work before them? Woman's work is more varied than it was of old,-more exciting, more amusing, more congenial; but, regarded simply as work, is it any better? Surely

the girls who distinguish themselves at Girton are, as a rule, precisely the girls who would have distinguished themselves at home. It is not only their work that has improved; it is not necessarily they that have improved; it is mainly the medium in which they live.

I do not wish for one moment to detract from the honour due to those who were pioneers in the cause of women, who, in the teeth of real persecution, asserted their right to be complete human beings, to "make good the faculties of themselves" in obedience to the light that was in them. They carried their lives in their hands, so to speak; they risked much and lost much. The girls who now follow in their steps risk nothing. They are sure of applause, sure of popularity, sure of a welcome. Let us give them the credit they deserve; but do they deserve credit for the fact that their choice of occupation is wider, their life more varied, their work (more congenial, and therefore easier?

In an able article on the woman question which appeared some time ago, the writer stated his conviction that the freedom which women at present enjoy is simply an instance of altruism on the part of the men. When the pendulum swings back, and altruism goes out of fashion, it was argued, women will once more betake themselves meekly to their distaffs.

The writer, no doubt, overstated his case, ignoring the fact that sluice-gates are more easily opened than shut, and forgetting that, on any computation, the relation

ʼn bear to men is not t which domestic ani■ both. At our worst we have at least the aking ourselves und history tells us that the days of "altruwoman's rights" secret in demand for unruly Still it is good for us other side, and few women will be inclined the part which men 1 in bringing about " emancipation" of is probably true that nt moment the whole he woman question ther of the evolution han of the women in a for, when all is said, d, as women, to rethe ultimate physical -ith the other sex. he custom at present = truth; but I can see r ignoring a fact, the which lies at the root ry of men, just as its ies at the root of all manliness in women. ntial to a lofty and 1 of the sexes that the y down his physical urely equally essential man to recognise the e has laid it down. understanding does it possible for women to work without sacrimakes womanhoodom mere humanity—

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the medium develops, se impossible for the O stand still. When f a plant is changed, ings happens: either nd dies; or it accomf-perhaps with condification of structure

-to the new con

ditions; and when we deliberately move a plant into new surroundings, we do our best to minimise the change as much as possible until the plant has had a chance so to adapt itself.

The comparison is obvious. A change of almost unexampled rapidity has taken place in the position of woman, and she is adapting herself to it, not without the manifestation of many crudities and misconceptions which, deservedly perhaps, bring a sneer to the lips of the unscientific. The wise man recognises that it would be against all reason and experience to expect such an adaptation to take place in a moment. Enough, he says, if it is coming about at all, however slowly.

And yet one cannot but feel with some regret that what we women are mainly striving after at the present moment is not more perfect adaptation, but only a greater change of surroundings. Most loyally, as I have said, do I give honour to those whose selfdenying exertions have enlarged the sphere and the horizon of their sex,-who have revolutionised the medium in which, as women, we live; but are we not nowadays following their lead too much au pied de la lettre? Is our good and laudable demand for more freedom, further privileges, not becoming to some extent a matter of habit? Are men not partly justified in maintaining that we

grow hot over wrongs that have long ceased to be, and argue as we might have done before there was any Married Woman's Property Act, or other amelioration"? No doubt there are still some things which we are entitled to ask from the other sex; but is it not amazing that we have got so much? Surely now what we want most is to rise to the full stature of

the advantages we possess; surely now the duty next to hand for most of us is not to develop the medium, but to develop the woman.

A tangled skein is this woman question of ours in the present day! a skein that well may baffle the wisest, the most liberal, the most patient. What is needed to set it right? One thing onlygood and capable women. Let them call themselves what they will-doctors, or lawyers, or dressmakers, or cooks; only let us have them. Surely the two doctrines which most need to be preached to the girls of the present day are these: 1. Choose work that is beneath you rather than work that is above you. 2. Take the work that comes to hand, and do it with all your might. It is not by opening up new spheres that you will best improve the position of women; it is by filling ably the sphere that you are in.

Trite doctrines, no doubt, old as humanity itself; and doctrines, moreover, which have often been used to bolster up abuses. Thirtytwenty years ago, I believe, many women were justified in ignoring such aphorisms. "There is another side to the question," they said; and by word and deed they stated the other side nobly. But now that it has been stated, now that the point has been gained, may we not thankfully go back to the simpler, more lovable virtues? As regards the medium, there is no longer any need to fear. The ball has been set rolling, and will run of itself. Let us leave for a time the education, the development, the purification, of men, and try to develop ourselves. But here I shall be told that no doctrine is so dangerous to preach as the duty of self-development, in that it leads to priggishness and self-consciousness, and all the faults we are most anxious to avoid.

The

In self-defence, let me fall back on my well-worn metaphor. If we want a plant to attain the highest perfection of which it is capable, we do not twist and bend its stem and snip its petals in accordance with our artificial idea of beauty: we plant it out in suitable air, at a suitable temperature, among suitable surroundings, and leave it to Mother Nature. metaphor plays me false in one respect, for the plant has but one medium-its world of physical surroundings. When, on the other hand, we are considering human beings, a new dimension is introduced; for the human being has two mediums: first, that of which I have spoken already-the medium of outward things, which is ours by necessity; and, second, the medium of thought and imagination, which is ours by choice. Who does not know that the second has a more real influence in developing character than the first?

So, surely, the one obvious unquestionable duty in this puzzling woman question is to place the growing thing, the girls-ay, and the women, if these be fortunate enough to be growing still! — in an atmosphere of pure and noble thoughts, of lofty aspirations, and then to leave the result in the hands of Eternal Law. Can any one fear that this will tend to produce priggishness and self-consciousness?

But however mistakenly we may strive after self-development, the struggle is yet to my mind a more edifying one than our present blatantly expressed desire to influence the other sex. Let us do it by all means-nay, we cannot help doing it, for good or evil, any more than they can help influencing us-but why counteract our own efforts by assuring them in every periodical that we mean to do it? It is not the friend who