dexterity employed by this lively, crafty animal, to avoid the dogs, are worthy of our admiration, as he exhibits more devices for self-preservation than any other beast of the chase. In many parts of this and the sister island, hare-hunting is much followed, but fox-hunters consider it as a sport only fit for women and old men,--but, although it is less arduous than that of the fox-chase, there are charms attached to it which compensate for the hard riding of the other.” I do not enter here into the question of cruelty in this sport, nor into the other question of injury resulting from it to crops and fences, on which grounds many so strongly object to hunting, and on the former ground, indeed, to all field sports. Lord Byron, for instance, thought hunting a barbarous amusement, fit only for a barbarous country. It is not my intention to undertake the defence of this old English sport from the standing charge against it, we here have only to deal with it as a feature of rural life; and though one cannot say much in praise of its humanity, it cannot be denied that it is a pursuit of a vigorous and exciting character. A fine field of hunters in their scarlet coats, rushing over forest, heath, fence or stream, on noble steeds, and with a pack of beautiful dogs in full cry, is a very picturesque and animating spectacle. Through the winter, then, up to the very approach of spring, hunting offers whatever charms it possesses; pheasant, woodcock and snipe shooting, in the woods and by the streams, are in all their glory. It is the time for pursuing all manner of wild fowl, in fens and along the sea-coast; and if any one would know what are the eager and adventurous pleasures of that pursuit, let him join some old fowler for a week amongst the reeds of Cambridge, Huntingdon, or Lincolnshire,--now laying his traps and springes, now crouching amongst the green masses of flags and other water plants, or crawling on hands and knees for a shot at teal, widgeon, or wild duck; now visiting the decoys, or shooting right and left amongst the rising and contorting snipes. Or let him read Col. Hawker’s delightful description of swivel shooting on the coasts, the mud-launchers and followers of the sea flocks by night. Those are sports which require a spice of enthusiasm and love of adventure far above the pitch of the ordinary sportsman.