anxious to bear away some memorial of the day's sport. The Graf

Von S. declared the tusks to be mine by right of conquest. This which you see I accepted, and I returned the other to the Graf, thus sealing a compact of friendship which has lasted ever since between us."

Such was my uncle's narrative of his hazardous exploit. I have myself seen some of the best boar hunts in Germany, but have never yet seen tusks equal to that at my uncle's chateau. What became of it when Yagerschloss was sacked and burnt I know not, but probably it has found its way into some cabinet of natural history.

As your correspondent, the Baron Gablenz, has given so good an account of the modern mode of hunting the wild boar in Saxony, I will not trespass farther on the pages of your valuable Magazine, by relating my own adventures in its chase. But you will not be surprised, Mr. Editor, that I should have early imbibed a strong and

lasting passion for field sports, as many of my early years were spent at Yagerschloss, where the recital of various interesting adventures in the pursuit of all kinds of game, was one of the most constant amusements in the long winter's evenings. Your obedient servant, ALBERT ENGELHORN.

P.S. I was upon the point of delivering the above narrative to my friend Hirschoff, when I received an anonymous communication expressing some doubt of my being of the ancient family of the Engelhorn's of Yagerschloss. As the writer will doubtless peruse the pages of your useful Magazine, I take this mode of answering his queries, that I am really descended from the family he alludes to, and that we originally came from Switzerland, where there is a peaked summit of a mountain (near Brunig) still bearing the name of Engelhorn, from a remarkable event which happened to our great

ancestor.

folly of the notion that this revolting practice can be of benefit to hounds, is almost quite exploded, it is high time I think, Mr. Editor, that the worse than absurd motives, that are mainly and in reality the cause of its committal, should be exposed; and I have therefore been induced to trespass on a small por-. tion of your valuable pages.

First, however, let me say a word or two as to the idea (which however I sincerely believe no man who knows any thing of hunting

G

can for a moment entertain), that hounds are benefited by worrying a fox, which they have already accounted for, thrown murderously amongst them, at the end of an hour or more's shivering and shaking by the side of an earth or drain. A question will here very naturally suggest itself, namely, the true meaning of that clause in the huntsman's catechism, which tells him that "to do well, his hounds must be kept constantly in blood." Is the sense of that talismanic phrase to be confined strictly and solely to the actual catching and eating their game, or do we mean that our hounds must be in the habit of almost invariably accounting for it, to perform their work as they should do-in other words, that they must themselves be satisfied as to what has become of their hunted fox? I have no hesitation whatever in declaring my persuasion, that the latter is the true interpretation of the adage; and, could it be proved, I am quite clear that were a pack to run to ground for thirty days in succession, and be satisfied themselves that they had done so, there would be no diminution either of their dash or their industry in working their thirty-first fox, even though such things as mattocks and terriers had been never heard of. It is the constant losing of their game, inexplicably and unsatisfactorily to them, that makes hounds slack; from what cause it matters little, whether a bad scent, or a bad huntsman, or a bad and jealous field, or, what too often happens, all these three evils conjoined in aggravation of

each other.

Do I then consider it unimportant whether hounds taste their game or not? Far from cherishing any notion of the sort, I hold this,

their object in the pursuit of it, to be of the last and most essential consequence; and in particular, have no idea whatever of the young ones entering as we would wish them, unless well and deeply blooded. But I do consider it one of the most idle apologies for murder ever pleaded, that, after hounds have run their fox to earth, and know that he is there, their confidence in themselves and each other requires to be either sustained or restored, as the case may be, by being first kept till half starved with cold, and then having him thrown pall-mall amongst them, without either catching or using an exertion to catch him themselves! Verily, verily, the man, if such there be, who, in his sober senses, can believe that blood thus obtained can be of service to his hounds, must have the brains and spirit of a genuine and veritable burrow-monger!!

I am I confess one of those who have little pity or commiseration for a pack of hounds who are, as it is technically termed, "out of blood." There is no earthly reason that this should be the case for a sufficiently long period to produce slackness in any country under the sun, no matter however hollow, or in

any weather that ever yet frowned upon fox-hunting. Either the huntsman is incompetent, or his hounds are not worth blooding; and in the first case, the crime of assassination by the spade and terrier is precisely the act of a brainless blockhead, with a belt across his shoulders, whom I can imagine grinning in glee above some drain into which by chance he has marked his fox, and muttering in ecstacy at his unwonted good fortune, “We've got him now!" As for any judge of hunting turning vulpecide, save from one of two motives, I will not

believe it possible, and of those as forming the gist of this communication, I now proceed to speak.

In the first place then, there exists at this moment a most ridiculous and reprehensible rivalry amongst masters of fox-hounds as to the number of noses, no matter how obtained, they can exhibit on their respective kennel doors at the end of the season;---and, secondly, according to true English custom, there is a pretty round bet very generally entered into on the subject. To support therefore Mr. A.'s boast, that his hounds will kill more foxes during the season than his neighbour Mr. B.'s, or, to put into the said Mr. B.'s pocket his bet of a cool hundred that he has laid on a similar event with a third M. F. H., Mr. C ; either to make good the boast, or make safe the bet, it is that the very wantoward unfair practice I complain of is so generally resorted to!

Now, under proper modifications and restrictions, I can imagine no more sporting engagement to be entered into amongst proprietors of packs or their huntsmen, nor one that would lend a greater stimulus to the exertions of both master and servant. But surely, if in the old system of cap or field-money, it was unusual to collect for the one in the case of a chopped or mobbed fox, it should be quite as unusual for the other to enter any thing on his list of "killed" that his hounds have not fairly, and in chase, run into. Did the terms of the wager include those foxes only, who have been fairly killed above ground, after having either been on their legs for a certain time, say twenty minutes, or have shown a burst of three or four miles from the place where they were found, all would then be well, and it would be the

bets of a sportsman; but so long as no protecting clause is inserted in the bill, so long as the mere production of the thirty or forty brace of brushes is sufficient to win the bet, or bear out the boast, we shall have, I fear, a continued repetition of the butcher-work of bringing every fox to bag that can be laid hold of by any means short of the actual trap or bullet; and I must be excused for saying, that there is no more credit due to the huntsman who is indebted to the spade for his show of noses, than to Mr. Timpkins who beats Mr. Simpkins in a cockney bet of sparrow-popping at Christmas, by having the luck of getting "a good shoot" as he classically calls it, at the dingy vermin whilst hard and heedlessly at work on a suburban dung heap.

Before Heaven! the bare whisper of some of the deeds of the present day, is enough, in the warm language of Junius, to stir the ashes of our sporting forefathers in their graves! What would they, with all their slowness, and cropped ears, and hunting-caps, have thought of a man, professing to be a sportsman, and actually, at the head of a kennel, allowing his hounds to run into a vixen that was known to

give suck, in order to make up his number!! What again would they have said to the master of a pack conniving at his whipper's half strangling a fox that they had just dug to, before turning him down, at the earnest remonstrance of part of the field, almost in view, instead of shovelling him at once (as usual) into the midst of them! What would they think of drains, &c. &c. known to be used by foxes, being left purposely open to secure a victim or two to a dead certainty!

But hold!--my pen refuses its

office, and will proceed no farther in this disgusting detail. That every landed proprietor on whose ground such enormities are practised, may cease at once to preserve, and become a red-hot vulpecide and battue-monger is my sincere and earnest prayer; for the accursed system of destruction has taken, I fear, such deep root, that it is only by some such practical lesson, that there is a chance of its being eradicated.

I am myself, and I glory in it, one of the bloodiest of the bloody; and never wish to see a fox make his from hounds. But, escape would I then resort to the cowardly trick of invading the gallant animal's sanctuary, and murdering him in "the den of his despair," that he had succeeded in reaching, if near, through the fault of my earthstopper, if distant, by his own courage and stoutness, and which instead of stimulating me to destroy, should command my respect and admiration for him? Shame! shame! I exclaim again and again on the inhuman custom! Even Caligula, or Nero, or Don Miguel himself, in a scarlet coat, could scarcely improve on it!

It may here be asked, do I object to digging, and then giving him, by allowing ample law, a fair chance for his life? To this I answer, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I decidedly do. It is all well enough if he goes soon to ground in a small drain or rabbit spout to bolt him-taking care of course that he has a good start, unobserved by the hounds, but into any thing approaching to an earth a spade should unquestionably never enter. No man knows what mischief may not be done by it; and as virtue, according to the school copy-books, is its own reward, so is not unfrequently the practice of breaking

ground for a fox; and I have known an instance of six lives, neither of them appertaining to the hunted animal, falling a sacrifice to the spade.

For the present, Mr. Editor, I take my leave;-with your per¬ mission, however, you shall perhaps again hear from me.

PACOLET.

A SCENE IN "FAIRY LAND."

Dramatis Persona.

Mr. OILCAKE. A large Farmer.
Mrs. OILCAKE. His Wife.
Miss OILCAKE. Their Daughter.
Miss ELIZA OILCAKE, Ditto.
Master TOMMY OILCAKE, Son and
Heir.

KEEPERS, &c. &c.

SCENE. Interior of a Wild Beast Show--the Oilcake family making the best of their way down the steps.

Mrs. Oilcake (half way down). "Dearer me! how turrific!" Master Tommy (on terra firma). "Oh my! what a smell!" Miss Oilcake." Well, I do declare! I'm not the least frightened as ever was."

Miss Eliza.- "La! how tame they all are! They don't look half so wild here, as in the pictures."

-

Master Tommy. - "Oh my! pa! here is such a queer hanimal; he's got his tail in his mouth."

Mr. Oilcake (who has been at the "Logical Gardens," and knows all about it)." Tail, my dear! that's called the probossus."

Master Tommy.-"Probossus! my eye!-I say, ma, look at the Probossus, how he's a-shakin' his head."

Miss O.- -"Oh! Liza, do come here! here's such a queer-serpentine-hanimal.”

Miss Eliza.- "No."

Mr. O." No, nor me nayther. -1 say, keeper, what do you call this here quadruped?"

Keeper. It's the Boa Constrictor, sir.'

Mr. O.-"Oh! the Boar Constructer, is it! well, hang me if I did'nt take it for a snake."

Mrs. O.-"Come away Tommy! -how dare you!"

Master Tommy." Why, Ma, I was only pulling two or three hairs out of his whiskers."

Miss O.-"Oh, Pa! what's that great hanimal lying down there?"

Mr. O.-"Why, my dear, I belleve that's a nondescrip."

Miss O." Oh! a nondescrip, is it !—well, I never see such a thing in all my life.-Oh! and what's that?"

Mr. O." I believe that's a nondescrip too, my dear."

Miss O.- "That a nondescrip! why, deara me! it's not a bit like the first; but p'rhaps it's a young one. Master Tommy.-" Ma, what's this?"

Mrs. O.-"That's a Camel, my love."

Master Tommy. - "My eye! he's got a pretty lump on his back." Miss Eliza. "La! what a rough cretur! What is it Pa?"

Mr. O." It's a Polish bear, my dear; from the North Pole."

Miss Eliza." Oh! its very cold there, I believe."

Keeper." Beg pardon, sir, but that bear's from the South Pole. He was brought over in one of the French ships of discovery."

Mr. O." Oh! from the South Pole, is he?"

Mr. O." That, my dear!-let me see I say, keeper, what do you call this here bird?"

Keeper." It's the Condor, sir." Mr. O.-" Aye; I thought it was. That's the Condor, my dear." Miss O." What, the Hanaconda?"

Master Tommy.-"My eye, Ma, look at that Tiger."

Mrs. O." Tiger, my love! it's a Zebra. Don't touch, Tommy; he'll bite you."

Miss O.- -"Pa, what's that?" Mr. O. (reading the name over the cage).-A hostridge love."

Miss O.- "A hostridge! but where's his feathers? Keeper, where's the hostridge's feathers?

Keeper. That's not a ostrich, Miss; it's a Porcupine. The ostrich as was in that cage died last June, and we havn't had the name altered."

Mrs. O." Oh! Tommy, Tommy! come down this minute? you'll be tore to pieces."

Master Tommy." Why, Ma, I was only getting up the lather to look at the monkeys."

Miss O.—“ Liza, Liza, look behind you! The helephant's got his trunk close to your ear."

Miss Eliza (screaming). "Oh!"

Master Tommy. "Oh, Ma! do come here. The keeper's agoin' to put his head into the Lion's mouth."

Mrs. O." I hope not. Oh dear! I wonder how he dars!Mary--Liza-come away directly!" Master Tommy." Why, Ma, he wo'nt hurt."

Miss O." I dare say he wo'nt