no less than six pheasants', besides several partridges' nests; which were, he assured me, all thrown away. Do not some of your readers feel inclined to exclaim, "I wish to heaven I had had them? Let me recommend, therefore, every man who knows of any manor in his own neighbourhood, where, as I was saying, the eggs are not regularly put under hens (after having first, of course, obtained leave from the proprietor), to beg the tenants on the manor to send him all the eggs which may happen to be mown over; and these, if I mistake not, will, if the half only should be hatched, make a very respectable addition to the show of game on the first of September or October. Sed de his rebus jam satis. I will only add, that should any one of your readers be anxious to increase the quantity of game on his estate, he will find it to be one of the most effectual, as well as most legitimate means of doing so, to make all possible inquiries in his neighbourhood, whether the eggs mown over are usually hatched or not; and if the latter should anywhere be the case, eagerly to seize every opportunity of getting them into his own hands. But whether from his own or his neighbour's land, we will suppose him to have obtained possession of a nest of partridge's eggs. We will now pass to the subject of hatching and rearing them. If a hen that wants to sit should not be easy to be obtained immediately, I need hardly say that great care must be taken that the eggs are not chilled, particularly if they happen to be sat upon, which indeed is generally the case with eggs mown over, as in most parts of the country the hay-harvest does not begin till the beginning or middle of July. The instant they (i. e., the eggs) are mown over, they should be wrapped in flannel, and laid at a moderate distance from the kitchen fire; but towards night, should, at least if the fire is allowed to go out during the night, be removed nearer to the fire-place, as, if the heat to which they have once been exposed is allowed to decrease, the young birds, if hatched, would be much injured by it. I have seen cases where, from the neglect of this precaution, the young birds, although they have eventually turned out well, have been always weaker when young, and required more care and attention than other birds. After a hen has been obtained, and it has been ascertained that she really does want to sit, the next thing to be thought of is the nest. In making the nest, the best plan is to place it in a slight hollow, so that the top of the nest may be level with the floor of the barn or out-house where the hen is to sit. The reason for this is, that if the young birds were hatched during the night, they might, if the nest were higher than the floor, escape from under the hen, not be able to climb back into the nest, and in consequence get a chill, from which they would never recover. should also be observed, that straw will make a better nest than hay, as it is stiffer, and keeps its position better. Care should be taken that the place in which the hen sits is free from rats. After all this has been attended to, the hen should be turned into the place; they having previously been put in some conspicuous place where she will easily find them. N.B. It will better to turn her in early in the day, as it will then be easy to see whether she takes to the eggs or not. Should she be placed with them towards nightfall, it would be hardly

It

possible to judge whether she will sit at all; and, even if she should begin to sit, she might forsake them during the night, when no one would be at hand to put them again within reach of the friendly warmth of the fire. If, however, she begins to sit on them in the morning, and continues to do so throughout the day, it is pretty certain that she will then sit upon them in real good earnest. Also I may remark, that if a hen could not be obtained for even two or three weeks, it will be of no consequence, if the eggs are kept warm; for they will hatch just as well at the kitchen fire, as under the hen. And if the hen, when she has been procured, does really want to sit, she will brood the young birds just as carefully and as affectionately as if they were of her own hatching. In conclusion, let me add, that your reader, if any thing of a farmer, might have been spared this long dissertation on the hatching of eggs, as he will find the old hen-wife who presides over his poultry-yard much more eloquent and learned on these subjects than I can pretend to be; and to him, therefore, let me offer my humble apologies for dwelling so long on this topic; hoping, at the same time, that he has not failed to leave all that I have written on the subject unread.

March 18, 1845.

Ξενος.

HIND-HUNTING IN DEVON AND SOMERSET.

It is with a mingled feeling of regret and pleasure that the pen is taken up for the purpose of recording any events which, replete with much enjoyment in themselves, yet carry with them evident signs that the time is fast approaching when such events, and the pleasure which is their attendant, must become a subject for memory only to deal with the pleasure of speaking of present enjoyment is strong; but the regret that perhaps the writer is sounding a knell of past delight, not again to be felt, by far counterbalances the more agreeable feeling.

It is in such a mood that I speak of the past season in West Somerset: never were there finer or perhaps so fine hounds in the country, or more controllable; the men being as efficient and as well mounted as necessity requires; the sport not to be surpassed, if equalled within the recollection of the oldest and most bigoted of the stag hunters, who with a sigh recall the old system, when more grandeur and fewer runs were afforded. Yet at the same time, the retrospect of the season is anything but satisfactory to me; for I must add, that our ancient hunters were more jealous of their character as legitimate sportsmen, if they were more slow in their movements and less anxious for the gallop, which is at present, and not with total injustice, esteemed the grand desideratum of the day.

Necessarily in a limited country it is a great difficulty to preserve a number of animals sufficient for the purposes of a regular hunt,

whose feeding is so copious and wide as that of the red deer, and who moreover are not under the protection of those special laws granted to less noble objects. A few days in each year, as in the New Forest, might be had with little trouble; but to hunt two or three times a week during August, September, and October, and one other month in the year, requires a considerable head of game; and, as deer are but slow propagators of their species, and do not reach maturity under (at the lowest computation) four years, the stock which to a stranger may seem superfluous, in reality may be insufficient for the need of future seasons: thus, in drawing a cover, half-a-dozen deer may be on foot, not one of which should be hunted. Some may be hinds with calves, others young deer of both sorts incapable of standing any time before hounds, or requisite for breeding. At times, a hind should be respected with the indulgence shewn to hen pheasants in a thinly-stocked preserve (and even more, for a pheasant brings up many from her nest in the year, the hind but one young one), whilst old hinds and stags should be persecuted with the zeal with which a sportsman would attack an old cock or his dark coloured consort: and this selection of the game for the day's sport it is that makes stag hunting so different a woodland craft from the pursuit of other animals of chase, and gives it certainly its most unpleasing characteristic; but the more strictly it is carried out, the fewer deer are necessary in the country to supply the hounds with game.

The only way to carry out this plan of selection obviously is to draw the covers with steady hounds, few in number, and peculiarly under command, to be at the meet at a reasonably early hour, and to leave the breakfast table with a plentiful supply of patience: the perseverance in an opposite course must tend to an opposite result, and drawing with the pack, that pack unusually large, going away with the very first deer or the very first herd, as it may happen, must end in scattering deer and hounds over the country, and in wholesale destruction of such deer as should be left alone for two or three years to come: those who shoot both barrels at the whole covey, or point their rifles on the northern forests to the herd, instead of the leader of it, may hug themselves at finding that there are those who pursue a similar principle in the hunting field; but there are many and a great majority, I trust, who equally abhor the one as the other.

It is impossible to alter the nature of a sport, unless the nature of the animal pursued can also be changed. Salmon cannot be killed. with the ease or carelessness which suffices for a moderate basket of trout; neither can a day's deer hunting be brought to a satisfactory and sportsmanlike termination with the same facility as can a day in a grass country and small coverts with a pack of fox-hounds: the go away is one of the most beautiful peculiarities of the latter, but it does not belong to legitimate stag hunting-"ne_sutor ultra crepidam;" and to obtain the chance of it (for at the best it is but a chance, and a poor one, too, with animals so gregarious as deer) another chance must also be risked, that is, getting away with a stag or young male deer in the hind hunting season, or with a hind (perhaps suckling her calf) in the autumn; which is not very unlike killing partridges in August, or grouse in January.

I submit these remarks with all deference to the master of the North Devon and Somerset pack, and those of its supporters who advocate the plan of drawing with thirty couple of hounds. But I would ask this question: Am I not right when I say that four stags is about an average which the covers close round Dulverton can afford in one autumn season? and if so, where are these to come from in 1848, since I believe three young male deer have been killed in that neighbourhood during this past hind-hunting season? I understand that both Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Knight, of Exmoor, were anxious to thin their stock for the sake of their tenants; but if this could not be done sufficiently by hunting in the usual and proper way (as with such hounds as constitute the pack at present I am sure it could), the rifle might have made a more discriminating selection of victims, and one less injurious to the prospects of future sport.

One who regards this sport with a fond attachment for its venerable antiquity, who clings to it as a last relic of the sport of our nobles in days of yore, and who in these times, when all field sports are struggling against their threatening extinction, looks with pride upon it as an unique characteristic of his native neighbourhood, must feel with regret any symptoms of its decay, and cannot help deprecating that course which in his opinion hastens its end. But yet all is not black; there is at present an open opportunity for keeping this hunt in prosperity some new friends have been found to give protection to the deer where for a long time they have been in danger. Much is to be hoped from the countenance of Sir Peregrine Acland; and it has been hinted that a noble family, a former head of which was master of the stag-hounds, will again look with favour on the preservation of these by far the noblest animals in Britain. Again, the state of affairs certainly has been in a worse position; so circumstances may again befriend us, and stag-hunting in the West may rise from this revolution with a strength adequate for many years' endurance.

It will be seen that fine runs have been had during the season just passed, when this plan of drawing with the pack was followed; but I maintain that as good runs would have been produced, and more proper deer killed, had the old mode of harbouring and tufting been adhered to perhaps the number of tufters might be increased to five or six couple, but I cannot advocate a further infringement on the old rules in this respect.

The first part of the season was in the Dulverton country: the hounds meeting each day in the town. On THURSDAY, April 10, a goodly muster of sportsmen from all parts of the west attended the opening of the campaign. The pack was taken to Harford, and then were flung into the large Haddon covers: in a very few minutes several deer were up, and the hounds dividing ran in all directions through these extensive woods, over Haddon Hill, Deer Park, and Upton Woods, and round and round about during the day, without getting off: a two-year-old male deer was secured close to Harford, and an old hind between Berry Village and Exebridge, both of which animals were saved: the scent indifferent, a cold east wind, and showers of rain and sleet.

MONDAY, 14th.-Again, an adjournment from the meet to Harford.

A deer soon broke from Haddon, with about half the pack at her heels, and crossed over Haddon Hill for Deer Park; here she joined a small herd of six, and they all broke the upper fence of the cover as if intending to fly the country; but having reached the Skilgate enclosures, they separated, the pack returning in full view to the Upton woods. After an hour's cover beating, a deer with part of the pack was seen to cross for Beechcombe, and the few that got away with this lot had a tolerable gallop; but the pace was indifferent, from the north-east wind, and the frequent storms of hail and rain. After running their hind into the parish of Bampton, these hounds brought her back to Skilgate Wood, and down the valley to Morebath; by Picksey Copse, through Berry Wood, to Haddon: here they joined the rest of the pack, which had killed one hind, and run up another. FRIDAY, 18th.-A large field: Haddon drawn as before a deer left the covers almost immediately, directly over Haddon Hill, and skirting the Upton Woods, took its line over the enclosures for Lowtrow Cross: turning to the left for Brendon Hill, he crossed it as if pointing for the distant Quantocks, whose outline appeared some dozen or fourteen miles before the chase; but after passing Combe Sydenham, the pace was such that the deer could not make head against it, and retreated to the covers and water there; a long check took place, which sent most of the men up home, after a most beautiful gallop. More than an hour having elapsed, the deer was fresh found, and ran into above the seat of Mr. Notley; it turned out to be a young male deer, and, unfortunately, it could not be saved. From the rouse to the check the time was under an hour, the distance a full twelve miles.

WEDNESDAY, 23rd.-A very full field, with three carriages full of ladies. Drew Picksey Copse blank; but better fortune attended the hounds in Birchwood, which was drawn in fine style, a hind rising before the pack in the most beautiful way possible; she pointed for Haddon Pillars, but turned back very suddenly, flinging out, by this lady-like indecision of purpose, the majority of the field. She took the river Exe under Berry, over Burston and Wilson's farms in Morebath parish, and soiled again below Exebridge, crossed the Tiverton road, and in a roundabout way got to the Stuckeridge covers and Stoodley; here she ran the woods in a zigzag direction for a long time, and tiresome it was for both horses and hounds: when she did break she went by Washfield and Loxbear, and eventually was ran into in the parish of Rackenford. Had it not been for the tedious beating of the steep woods, the last part would have afforded a fine run to those out; but a very few saw it, the patience of the men and the powers of their steeds being worn out before the deer thought proper to put her speed against that of the hounds. Five hours and a-half did it take to catch this old lady, who was in fine condition for running, owing to short commons during the winter.

SATURDAY, 26th. The pack ordered for Stockholm wood; but on their way, some gentleman, who came up after having lost his way in a wood, gave information of having seen two deer cross a river close to him, a stag and hind. This proved to be close to the ruins of Barlynch Abbey, and, on nearing the spot, the hounds dashed over