X

SLAUGHTER of game on a large scale is, after all, new thing, for surprising quantities were killed before the French Revolution in one day, on the domains of some of the French nobility.

Prince Radzivil once showed Augustus Poniatowski a plain perfectly open, and without a covert for a sparrow, and asked him if he wished to have a day's sport hunting there. The King replied that, as he could not see a bit of brushwood, if he hunted, it must be the birds of the air, not the beasts of the field. "As for the want of a forest," rejoined the Prince," that is my affair, not your Majesty's; only say the word, and here you shall to-morrow have a glorious day's sport." The King, determined to humour the Prince, accepted the invitation. On the following day, as if by enchantment, was seen a forest as fresh as if it had come from the hands of Nature, and stocked with deer, wild boars, and various other game.

To account for this sudden transformation of an open plain into a wood, the reader should know that the whole plan had been previously arranged, with the view of giving the King a high idea of the power of the Prince. Accordingly, for some days previous to the invitation being given, thousands of

the peasantry had been employed in uprooting trees and placing them upon timber wagons; holes had been dug in the plain, and in one night a forest was planted, and the animals carried or driven thither. This extravagant whim cost, of course, a pretty considerable sum of money, but the whole of the expense was probably more than repaid in the estimation of the Prince by the éclat of the freak; and the memory of the Radzivil Hunt has been preserved like that of Chevy Chase in England.

The battle of Wagram, it may not be generally known, so celebrated for the slaughter of men, was also the occasion of an extraordinary slaughter of game. It was, indeed, one of the largest battues ever known. The beaters were four hundred thousand French and Austrian troops who fought on a plain covered with hares. At every ten paces numbers jumped upthe rattle of musketry and the cannonading rendered them wild with terror. Maddened with fear, the poor animals rushed from before the moving wall of Frenchmen, only to find themselves hemmed in by an equally impenetrable barrier of Austrians; then they rushed back to the French. They ran in squadrons between the two armies. At one moment a charge of cavalry, which certainly was no affair of theirs, put them to the rout; they pierced the ranks, passed between the legs of the soldiers, and were either sabred, bayoneted, or taken alive. The day resolved itself into a regular butchery of men and hares! The humorous note was not absent, for one puss killed made men forget a comrade slain !

It was like the pantomime after the tragedy! If every bullet has its billet, how many bullets destined by one army for the other were billeted by an averting Power in the bodies of those poor animals! Never were there so many seen-never were there so many killed! That evening, after the battle, conquerors and conquered alike, all supped off " jugged hare.” The hare is not usually considered a very sagacious animal, but there are exceptions to every rule.

A Mr. Dunning, of Winchley, in Devonshire, who had a pack of harriers, kept a pet hare in his large walled garden for several years, which before capture had given him and his hounds twenty-three runs.

Puss was the admiration of the neighbourhood, owing to her extraordinary history.

When out hunting, Mr. Dunning had frequently found a hare near a deserted cottage, in the herb garden, which always gave the sportsmen a most excellent run, and was lost in a very extraordinary manner in one particular spot. The master, astonished at this, sent a man to watch near the place where the hare always ended her runs; the latter saw her come leisurely up to the spot, where there was a double bank, called in Devonshire a hedge, from whence grew a pollard ash, in which time had made a large hole; the hare looked around, and then leaped from the bank into the hole. The hounds with one follower alone came up, the rest of the sportsmen being thrown out, as this witch of a hare, as they called her, had given them a chase of two hours and a half. The hounds hunted the hare to the

top of the hedge, and then gave up the thing as usual, after which the man captured puss. Added to this extraordinary fact, the hare had but three feet, one of her fore ones having been cut off by some trap.

A Scotch farmer, known for his good breed of greyhounds, had often coursed a hare unsuccessfully. At last her appearance and habits became so well known to him that he was able to distinguish her from others, and knew where to find her when wanted. On a bank sloping gently to the water of Leith, the background rising more precipitously to the Pentland Hills, puss was always to be found at home at certain hours; and whenever the farmer wished to gratify any of his friends by witnessing the speed of his dogs, he had only to proceed to her haunt. She became so accustomed to the sport that it did not seem to annoy her, and she would trot at leisure before the dogs, until hard pressed, when, turning her head to the hill, and putting out her speed, in a short time they were "at fault." This lasted for some time, until the farmer, irritated by the repeated defeat of his best dogs, somewhat cruelly ended the poor hare's career by shooting it, which caused a good deal of regret to many who had come to look upon poor puss as a friend. In all probability the man was actuated in some degree by superstition. The hare has always been supposed to be a witch's favourite metamorphosis; indeed, she was seldom alleged to assume any other shape, and when the chase led past a lone moorland hut, occupied by an old woman, and the dogs lost sight thereabouts, as it was likely

they would, the evidence was generally considered conclusive.

A crooked sixpence was generally put in the charge when any one wished to destroy one of these uncanny hares.

At one time hawking was a favourite sport in England, which sent experts to various parts of Europe, including Holland.

Louis Bonaparte, when King of that country, detained some English falconers about to leave for England, and employed their talents for some time in his own service; he then transferred them to his brother, Napoleon, who used to make them exercise their art for his entertainment at Versailles. On his commencing his ill-fated Russian campaign, having expressed a wish for their company to those inhospitable regions, they obtained leave to depart by representing that theirs was the profession of wings, and not of arms.

A notable supporter of this old-world sport was Lord Berners, who for a time was a worthy representative of that falconry which was once the delight of our princes, and the diversion peculiar to all of gentle blood, some of whom bore the "tercel gentle " for device. Up to comparatively recent years the Hereditary Grand Falconer had to capture a pigeon (latterly a tame one) by means of a hawk, in order to hold his post.

Soon after Lord Berners had become a convert, the style of his hawking establishment achieved a high standard of perfection. His own estate afforded