The great Haymarket, the "Szenaja Plostadt," is the attraction to the hungry throng. There, in long rows before the butchers' booths, stand on their four feet frozen oxen, bucks, and wild boars, with heads outstretched, the butcher either sawing or chopping off the desired joint for his customers; his knife would make no impression upon the hard-frozen meat. Quantities of small game--hares, partridges, pheasants, and black-cock--from other countries, preserved by the icy atmosphere, hang in festoons from the booths. The venders of bear's flesh have their separate quarter; the centre of the square is taken up by the fish shops, where great heaps of bemaned sea-lions are offered as delicacies. Purchasers in tens of thousands pass before the booths, some on foot, others in sleighs with bells jingling, the greater part of them women, while the sellers are all men. No women hawkers are to be found here. Even the special delicacy of Butter-week, the "blinnis," are made by men bakers; these are omelets soaked in butter and spread with caviare. Then there are the Raznocsiks, tall young fellows, their fur coats fastened with a girdle round their waists, who, with baskets on their heads piled high with every kind of eatable, go in and out of the crowd with untiring cry, "Come, buy pirogo! saikis! kwast!" The venders of tea are keeping it boiling hot in their great samovars; the doors of the spirit-booths are forever on the swing. Pirog especially disposes to a good drink. It is a flat cake, composed of chopped fish, meat, and coarse vegetables--a choice morsel--and this is the last day on which it may be enjoyed; to-morrow it may not even be thought of. All St. Petersburg is in the streets. It is a lovely day in March; not a day of spring and violets, but of frost and icicles. The north wind of yesterday has sent down the thermometer fourteen degrees. Splendid weather! At midday, just as the great clock of Isaac Church begins to strike, a fresh hubbub arises among the noisy throng. Down the long, straight street, called Czarskoje Zelo Prospect, a party of huntsmen were seen coming along in full pursuit of a magnificent twelve-antlered stag. A stag-hunt at that season of the year is forbidden by the common laws of hunting. The new antlers are not yet grown; they are but knots grown over with tender hide. No less is it permitted to follow a hunt through the streets of a city, more especially of St. Petersburg during Maflicza week. But this distinguished party does not seem bound by ordinary laws. The hunting-party consists of some twelve men and three of the opposite sex, not counting about fifty huntsmen and packs of hounds. They send the people flying the whole length of the street before them. It may have been that the start had been in Czarskoje Zelo Deer Park, that the stag had broken away and had taken his course towards the town, the huntsmen after him. A huntsman's zeal does not stop to inquire which way is permitted or which prohibited.