In Auckland market fat cattle sell at twenty to thirty shillings per hundred lbs., sometimes even a little more. Our beasts usually fetch us ten or twelve pounds apiece, after deducting freightage, and our agent's charges for receiving and selling them. This year, our herd of two hundred head yielded us three batches of four-year-old fat steers, each batch containing about a dozen head. When cattle breed wild in the bush they may be a source of considerable annoyance and loss. This does not matter in remoter districts, such as the recesses of the Hokianga forests. Wild cattle abound there, possibly in hundreds; and the Maoris make a good thing by hunting them for their hides. There are no settlers' cattle running in the bush there; but where there are, wild cattle would make them as wild as themselves, and would spoil a herd in no time. When they appear in a district, cattle-farmers have to combine to hunt them down and extirpate them. Once there were some wild cattle in the bush between Te Pahi and Paparoa, on the opposite side of our river. The settlers of Paparoa were hunting them down, and we were warned to look out, for fear the beasts should take to the water. They did do so, and a whole mob of them tried to swim over to our side. Fortunately we were on the look-out. At once a party took to the boats, while others watched along the shore. We were in a great funk about the matter, for if the wild bulls got over to our side it might mean almost ruin for us. So we charged gallantly at them in the water, and strove to head them back to the other side, where the Paparoa men were waiting for them. Such guns as we had were brought out, but they were little good, not being rifled, and we had no ball cartridge. Dandy Jack performed prodigies of valour with an old harpoon; and O'Gaygun used his axe with great success. Altogether, the excitement was great and the sport good. One bull overturned a boat, as it rowed alongside him; but the Fiend, who was in it, adroitly clambered on to the animal's back as it swam, and, with great difficulty, managed to open its throat with his knife. Seven or eight were killed in the water. Even the despised new-chums' pistols were brought into use, and in this emergency they proved really valuable. The beasts that effected the crossing were slaughtered on the beach; and altogether we killed some eighteen or twenty. We prevented them thus from getting into our bush, so saving our own herd from contamination. This has been our only experience of the kind in this district, luckily. There was an incident that happened once, in connection with cattle, of rather an unusual sort. So much so, in fact, that most people to whom we have at times spoken of it have doubted our veracity. I suppose it will add but little weight to the story if I premise it with the assertion that it is simple truth. Nevertheless, it _is_ actual fact, believe it or not who list.