thirty minutes from the osier bed at Deddington turnpike with the hounds of the late Duke of Beaufort; the brook on the lower side of the cover was more than a bumper, and the pack had actually to swim over to draw this small island, flooded as it was, and which is scarcely half an acre, before the old gentleman made his exit; however, he beat us after a sharp burst, by going to ground in Sir Thomas Mostyn's (now Mr. Drake's) country near the village of Adderbury. Modern invention has in some places substituted covers made of dead wood, instead of planting or sowing. These are denominated "stick covers," "" 66 faggot covers," or "dead covers;" they may be found to answer occasionally in the total absence of real brushwood, until a regular gorse cover can be raised; but they are also highly objectionable on many accounts:-In the first place, no good wild fox will lie in them; and secondly, they are dreadfully distressing to hounds when drawing, on account of the thorns breaking off after they have punctured them, and, in consequence, frequently causing an obstinate lameness; lastly, they are awfully expensive, and at the best only last about three years. Where there are many old whitethorn bushes (of twenty or thirty years' growth) upon the side of some warm and sequestered bank, the boughs may be advantageously nicked down, and the interstices filled up with strong stakes and dead wood; by this means, a good cover of several acres may be at once formed, quite equal to any gorse cover, which will last for many years without renewing, and to which foxes will be found to take more kindly, than if the whole were composed of faggots and such rubbish. An artificial earth may also be made in one corner; but it will be found of but little avail for the purpose of rearing turneddown cubs in, unless there is a good supply of water close at hand; this is indispensable, as without it young foxes will inevitably wander away and be lost, and thus starved to death or destroyed. No game should be encouraged in a cover which is rented or kept up solely as a fox-cover, for reasons too obvious to mention; and even rabbits, where they are allowed to get to too great a head, defeat the object for which they were at first introduced, by attracting every idle boy and cur dog within six miles of the place to hunt them. The more frequently large woodlands are ransacked the better; but small gorse covers or spineys should on no account be disturbed oftener than about once in every three weeks or a month, that is if the find is to be booked as a certainty. Beckford recommends the encouragement of gorse covers as a great protection to foxes from poachers and fox-catchers; such might have been the case in the days of that great authority, but it is well known by every one conversant in that nefarious practice, that there is no place in the world where foxes can be more easily taken than from gorse covers, unless well watched and preserved by persons employed for the express purpose. In drawing small covers, it matters but little whether you go up wind or the reverse into them; if the animal is at home, and a moderate share of pains taken, he is almost sure to be found, and two or three cracks with a whip in the adjoining field, and calling the hounds back with a loud voice, as a huntsman usually does when travelling along, will generally give sufficient warning for a fox to get upon his legs and prepare himself

for a start, without the danger of being chopped. Where there is a large riding in a cover, the field had by all means be better collected to that point, as there will be less chance of the fox being headed back, than when each person is left to his own discretion; the jealousy of getting a good start has been the chief cause of spoiling many a good run. I have occasionally seen a small cover drawn by about four or five couples of hounds, the body of the pack being kept in reserve at some distance, and must confess, that although the motive was excellent, viz., that the fox should have every advantage in making his point away without being overpowered by numbers and chopped, it took away in no little degree from the true spirit of the thing. Colonel Cook mentions, in his "Observations on Hunting," the circumstance of Mr. Meynell's hounds waiting in the same field, while a few couples selected from the pack were running hard in an adjoining gorse, nor did they attempt to break from the whipper-in until cheered to the cry by Jack Raven. In some hunting countries, where earths are scarce, and it is found necessary to establish an artificial one, for the sake of rearing young cubs, which may have been put down, the best method of making one is by digging a deep trench on the sunny side of some rising ground, inside the cover which is intended to be stocked, if possible; when you have dug the first trench, which ought to be about four feet deep, and about of the same width, being in a semi-circular form, with two entrances, and from the centre turning off into an oven or den, lay a drain of very small soughing tiles, placed upon flat ones, to prevent rabbits from working under them; by this means, the artificial earth will be kept perfectly dry after severe soaking rains; having formed the large trench, in which the earth is to be made, lay the bottom with large flat stones, which may be generally procured from the rubbish of stone quarries at a low price, taking care to build, in the afore mentioned oven or den, a kind of raised kennel, in which the foxes may lie secure and dry, having two or three small spouts in the side, into which a fox may stick himself, with his head only exposed, in case of a terrier being sent in by a poacher or fox-catcher; by taking this precaution, it will be next to an impossibility for a dog, which is small enough to creep into the earth, to bolt or draw a fox out. The earth may then be built of stones or bricks upon the floor, terminating at each entrance with a hole of such a size as not to admit a dog larger than a fox. The mouth should be made with a heavy stone, or large piece of timber, to prevent its wearing away. A large mound of soil should be heaped over the earth, and, for a better protection, a quantity of dead cover placed upon that. Great care should be taken to select a dry place for an earth, or the foxes will become mangy, and, by dying in the earth, spoil it for ever. Badgers are a sad nuisance when they take to an artificial earth, and should be immediately caught, or they will in a short time pull down and destroy the whole of the interior. The best plan for taking them is by placing sacks or large purse nets made on purpose in the entrance to the earth on a moonlight night, and hunting them in with terriers from the lower grounds, where they usually go to feed about midnight. It is a fact perhaps not generally known, but nevertheless not the less curious, that badgers go twelve months with young; and

this fact I learned from a neighbour of mine in Warwickshire, who, some years ago, dug out in the spring a sow badger and pigs; the young ones were destroyed, but the old badger was confined in an out-house for twelve months, where I frequently saw her, about which period she produced one young one. During her confinemet it was impossible for her to have been visited by a male, which is a conclusive proof of what I have stated about the period of their gestation.

It is generally given as the opinion of most sportsmen, that foxes are not so stout as they were fifteen or twenty years ago, and that there are not any thing like the long runs there had used to be in those days. There is without doubt a good deal of reason in this, for, in the first place, the country is much more enclosed than in former times, nor are there near such good scents as there had used to be, when the land was in a more primitive state of cultivation; sheep in those days were generally folded or kept in large flocks, and not as they now are, divided into small lots of eight or ten, and placed in nearly every field you pass through in a run, where they never fail to follow the fox, and stand jambed-up in the hedge just in the way of the hounds. Moreover there are such numbers of bad French foxes turned down every season, which, being weak and obliged to be fed for a considerable length of time, cannot possibly have the least knowledge of the country exceeding about two miles from the place where they have been brought up, nor strength to stand before hounds with any thing like a scent if they did. Canals and railroads are on the increase, and the whole face of the country being now built upon, a fox can seldom go any great distance without being headed from his point. Game preservers and traps of all descriptions lend their aid to defeat the object of the fox-hunter. The modern system of hard riding, where all are in such hurry, men, horses, and hounds, that the fox gets almost immediately blown, when he either turns short back, or lies down in some convenient ditch, where he carefully retraces his steps, as soon as the whole cavalcade have unwittingly passed him. Such poor devils as these cannot be expected to shew long runs over a straight line of country; but a good old dog fox, such an one as used to be found at Hampton Coppice, or Tyle Hill, in my earlier days, going straight across the enclosures, without deigning to sneak under a hedge-row, would take more killing than half the flying packs of the present day could find time to bestow upon him; and unless there was a real "ravishing scent," he might truly exclaim with Coriolanus

"On fair ground I could beat forty of them."

As long as there is a chance of finding and killing foxes in large woodlands, hounds should never on any account be taken to draw small spineys, or be suffered to work in the open; it is impossible to keep so large a body together as are generally taken out at that time of the year, and the mischief they may be led to commit, and the vices they may contract, will be much easier acquired than cured by such a practice. Some countries are so extensive, and the foxes so well preserved, that the two packs necessary for four days a week may be divided from the very outset, which is a most excellent plan, and some masters of hounds are in the habit of so arranging matters

from the very commencement of the season. When the young hounds begin to show an inclination to work and to enjoy a scent, and to be tolerably steady, about a fortnight before the regular season, the two packs should be formed; they may then be allowed to work over the open, and such as are noisy or cannot go the pace, or are guilty of any flagrant vices, should be immediately put back; at this time it is the custom in some kennels to rest for a week, dress, and give a mild dose of physic. I should consider a week spent in hard work to have a much more salutary effect, as nothing is so prejudicial as too much rest, particularly during the autumn; and by hunting three days instead of four, it is a very easy thing to give each pack a mild dose, which is all that is requisite. It is an excellent practice to stir up every cover before November, except where the foxes are very shy of lying, and where "the find" is always uncertain; it teaches them to break sooner when they are regularly hunted; and by this means better runs will be obtained previous to Christmas, than by nursing them, as is too frequently the case in some favourite covers, until the end of November, when they show but little or no sport. There are very few districts of large and deep woodlands, but where the foxes might be made to fly, by continually hunting them for three or four days in succession: however, very few huntsmen have courage or inclination to go through with so arduous an undertaking, if they can possibly find cubs and get a sufficiency of blood in smaller and more handy covers. Some years ago Mr. Asheton Smith adopted the following plan, for instilling terror into the foxes in the great Collingbourne Woods, which are situated on the borders of Hampshire, on the Berkshire side; he caused large fires to be lighted and kept up all night at certain places, so that the foxes should be rendered more shy and inclined to fly their country, which seemed to be all up in arms against them, when found in the day time by the hounds. Where proper persons can be employed to keep an eye to the preservation of foxes from fox stealers, main heads of earths are indispensable, not only as sure and safe places for vixens to lay up their cubs in, but also as inducements for good old travelling foxes to come long distances home, and by that means afford better and straighter chases, than by ringing about a district of country and covers without any particular object to allure them to a distance. If the stopping of such places may be found expensive and inconvenient, they can very easily be well smoked and stopped up in October for the season, taking care to have them well opened by the first week in March. No head of breeding earths ought to be stopped after the first week in March, but merely put-to when the hounds are in the neighbourhood. The difference between stopping and putting-to is, the former being stopping the earths in the middle of the night, and putting-to only placing the kid or faggot in the mouth of the earth late in the morning, to prevent a fox getting in after he is found by the hounds. The earth-stopper should invariably unstop all his earths before dark, after they have been stopped, unless those which have been blocked-up for the season. Foxes lie very much at earth in the spring of the year, after they have begun to draw the earths out for breeding.

(To be continued.)

REMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND.

"Oh, St. Patrick a cuishla! St. Bridget asthore !
Collhun cuill mavourneen, your masther implore
To look down with compassion on Erin the Green!"
ANONYMOUS.

In the autumn of the year 183- I was stationed with my regiment in that pleasant portion of her Majesty's dominions in Ireland, well known to the curious geographer as lying "at the back of God speed," when a letter arrived from the sheriff of an adjoining county, requesting the assistance of the military. He had gone out, he said, with a few policemen, to reinforce a gauger; they had succeeded in capturing a still, and were returning quietly home laden with the spoil, when they were attacked by an armed party, the gauger pitched into a lake, the still recaptured, and although he himself was allowed to depart in peace, it was with a civil intimation that if he ever ventured that way again, he would be sent home with as many bullets in his body as there were hairs on his head.

As the letter concluded with a moving appeal to the colonel to lose no time in despatching sufficient force to his aid, I received orders to "boot and saddle" directly; and two hours after the arrival of the express, I found myself at the head of twenty stout troopers on the road to "Ballysumahawn"-a name, by the way, which three months residence in the west barely enabled me to pronounce.

It was late in the evening of the third day, when tired and travelstained we entered the town. As we rode slowly up the street the whole population turned out to gaze on us as we passed, although, if one might judge by their remarks, our appearance was highly displeasing to the natives.

"Divle take them!" said one fellow; "as if we had n't enough of peelers and process-servers, but they must send down the sassenach horsemen to massacree us!"

"Massacree you is it?" said another; "Naboklish! troth, its little half-a-dozen of the Molly Maguires' 'ud think of scatterin' them to the elements, for all their fine feathers and mustaishous."

"Go home to your mother, young man," said a withered old crone to myself, "or be my sowl its Tullahawn's payment you'll get here, and that's more kicks than ha'pence."

I certainly began to agree with the latter speaker, as we filed on through the dark, scowling countenances of the mob, and pulled up before a ruinous-looking old police-barrack, where we were informed we must take up our quarters: there was, however, no help for it ; so, after seeing the horses put up, and placing a sentry on the stable, lest the people should follow the advice of the "coadjutor" and "smoke us out like rats," I endeavoured to make up for the fatigues