"but these chaps have been at one of those outlandish what-d'ye-callthems again. I wonder which on 'em played the Polka?"

"O yes, papa; so they have," joins in daughter Mary. "A battue, papa-battue, that horrible, cowardly, cruel amusement I wrote to the Times about. I'll write to it again, papa."

"Well, upon my honour!" says the Times himself, mixing up his thunder, 66 that Lord Fieldfare really is continuing this continental custom; but it is our duty to give him a dressing for his barbarity, and one of the strongest I can put on too."

"He has had a battue! he has had a battue !" screams in a whole mob of old English indignation. "He has had a battue!"

And all time and the honourable Grantley Berkeley, in answer to this, prove between them, with the course of the one and the logic of the other, is, that "my friend his lordship has had a battue, and will very shortly have another."

THE WILD WOODCRAFT OF GERMANY.`

BY CRAVEN.

This is an affair of which every body, I should think, has heard. I too had heard of it and read of it, and been told of it; and now I have seen it, and the upshot is-I am content for the rest of my life to abandon all visions of the Black Forest and Demon Hunters for a meet at Oadby toll-bar, or in the vale of Belvoir. See what raw-headand-bloody-bones stories "griffins" send home from John Company's land about tigers, enough to turn the best patent wig into a chevaux de frize; and yarns about chasing the grizzly boar-or "pig-sticking," as they facetiously call it-done up with horrors about lacerated femoral arteries, and horses turned inside out, enough to sicken a college of surgeons. I eschew them-disbelieve them-utterly repudiate them. If men must pursue the reproach of Israel, let them go into Berkshire, take their poodles with them, sit down in the neighbourhood of a good sty, and be happy: as for tiger-shooting, I am quite persuaded now, that better cannot be compassed in the empire of the Great Mogul than may be had in Regent-street any fine evening when grimalkin goes freely abroad. On the eve of starting for Doncaster Races, I put my paper before me, on which I had traced the memories and impressions of two episodes in German sporting which recently fell under my observation. I had already gathered into words my feelings on those exhibitions, wherein, though I did "nothing extenuate," most certainly I did not "set down aught in malice." They were written while yet the scenes were fresh to my recollection and imagination, and I cannot lay them more vividly before the reader than by means of the pictures sketched while yet the subject had a local habitation in my mind's eye. The first relates to a chase of the wild deer got up

among the pine forests of Thuringia, for the especial honour and amusement of Queen Victoria, her consort Prince Albert, and the English Court, by the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It was, of course, on the grandest and most approved scale of such stern passages of woodcraft known to the country: it was, obviously, the national fashion of such princely field-sports; for the actors did their ensanguined essay like men whose hearts long custom of cruelty had turned to stone.

It was on Saturday, the 30th of August last, that, in contemplation of a grand forest chasse announced for the forenoon, I drove over, at the best pace of German posting, from the pleasant little city of Gotha to Reinhardtsbrunn, a chateau of the reigning Duke, some nine English miles distant. The day was fearfully hot; and, as I went on my way sweltering, it was no wonder doubts would arise as to the sport which should come of the hunting. A right royal company was assembled, consisting of the august persons already alluded to, the King and Queen of the Belgians, and dukes, princes, and potentates enough to furnish a new volume of the Red Book. I am aware that all the journals of the day spoke of this dire issue, which shall descend to posterity in company with the gory records of Chevy Chase. But, without offence, I may take credit for noting it with more of a sportsman's unction than many of those who have given their impressions of it: therefore, to our tale.

The cortège being formed, defiled through the grounds of the chateau, and passing the village of Verstadt, got up like a scene in a melodrame for the occasion, began to ascend the mountain range which forms the noble belt to the southward of Reinhardtsbrunn, by a road worthy of the Simplon. After following this fine highway a liberal German mile, the hunters at once plunged into the pine forest by a rude cattle-pass, then made smooth for the gentle train-newly laid with fine gravel and fresh greensward-for

"There are few who frequent that moss-covered road,

Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,

To his hills"

At

The first vista in the deep dark woodland revealed a scene which had all the characteristics of an Alpine solitude, except the sharp pyramidal peaks into which the mountains of Switzerland love to shape themselves. Giant firs, whose green was hardly a shade from black, clothed every hill from foot to summit, and as yet the field of sight took in vast mountain wastes only. Through this forest an English league had to be won-the whole against an ascent as steep, I would say, as that of Hampstead Hill, only for the bathos. length this labour was accomplished, and emerging suddenly from the dark obstruction, a view burst before that high company such as not many of them, I should imagine, ever looked upon before. It was a mighty, an eternal amphitheatre of forest-clad mountains, sweeping up and upwards from wild crag-strewn abysses to toss their black plumes to the sky. Beyond these, away far as the eye could strain, the low table-land stretched like the ocean slumbering under a yellow sunset, till earth and heaven mingled together in the distant horizon.

Where the hill-side jutted into a sort of ledge, the royal troop drew up, and there, in the midst of that vast amphitheatre, you saw a green hill, placed as it were by the cunning of man's hand for the purpose to which it was applied. From the valleys to the north and south arose gently-swelling causeways, heath-covered, leading to it by paths that seemed to solicit the foot. The summit was crowned by a small pavilion, built of the sweet new sod, and festooned with purple heath and the blue dell flower. Never was there bower more suited to the spot. It stood, as I have said, on the highest point of the small green hill. On those sides to which no causeway led were stretched down to the valley strong nets of rope, some ten or fifteen feet in height, and covered with snow-white canvass, that, from those on a level with it, all sight within should be shut off. These barriers at intervals had small flag-staffs attached, from which scarlet and blue and green and white streamers were waving; for, thanks to Zephyr, a breeze would ever and anon steal over us from the mountain tops, or we had perished in the stark sunglow. Within this enclosure were men in gay uniforms of Lincoln green, bedight with much gold and streaming with plumes; these were the chasseurs of his Highness the reigning Duke: and beside them were numerous foresters, and a miscellaneous crowd of peasants in sky-blue blouses, whose business and attire in that presence puzzled me for the nonce, but who were a most characteristic body, as will presently be shown.

During the space occupied in this brief sketch of the scene, the reader will suppose the royal party have passed from their equipages on the ledge of jutting rock to the green hill in the centre of the mountain amphitheatre-to the air of " God save the Queen." The serious business of the day was now at once put in motion, to the intense anxiety of the multitude that thronged the mountain-side from whence sight of it might be had. In the pavilion were assembled her Majesty, of England, the Queen of the Belgians, the Duchess Alexandrina of Coburg, and one of the English Ladies in waiting, as spectators; the King of the Belgians, Prince Albert, Duke Ferdinand of Coburg, and the Prince of Leiningen, as actors; the whole giving you the idea of a shooting-party about to commence operations in an opera-box. Apart from the pavilion some fifty or a hundred yards, such of the guests of the Duke as were entitled to slay deer in the sovereign presence-for here privilege is paramount-were placed, a small table being provided for their accommodation, for some reason or other. Store of fire-arms, ammunition, and the like, were of course in readiness, and here and there a noble hound straining on the leash. The beaters scour the forest dells north and south-the bugle sounds. Hah! There they come, by St. Hubert! a gallant herd, all stags of ten. How the rifles fly to the shoulder! how the welkin rings with shot and shout! See that antlered chieftain pauses, tosses his front on high, bounds into the air, and falls-stark and stiff; the rifle has rung his dirge!

Let me here, on the threshold of a tale I would fain not tell with discourtesy, but which I am bound to tell in its truth, and its whole truth, disclaim all design of dealing with it in an unbecoming spirit. It was parcel of the customs of a country with whose usages I was not