highly favoured. Setters and pointers (Russian
and Spanish preferred by some) are the best
dogs to shoot grouse to; the time, between the
12th of August and the 20th of September,
though some talk of October and even the early
days of November, but you will get better
grousing between the dates I have mentioned;
a large bored gun, and, if with a muzzle-loader,
No. 3 shot. Colonel Hawker says: "Grouse
take a harder blow than partridges."

Also in the sporting journals, under the heading
"To Let," will you find the entry, "Splendid
deer forests." A deer forest is so named on the
celebrated lucus à non lucendo principle, it does
not contain a single tree, but is simply a Highland
tract of land from which sheep have been
kept off—as sheep and deer will never feed
together. The most celebrated are the deer
Forests of Lord Lovat, the Duke of Richmond,
the Duke of Athol, and, above all, of the
Marquis of Breadalbane; for a good deer forest,
a thousand a year is a low price, and every deer
shot, costs, on an average, from sixty to eighty
pounds. Let no man, unpossessed of great
bodily strength, with lasting power and patience,
undertake deer-stalking. To walk for miles to the
shooting-ground, to crawl on all fours or on the
stomach for several hundred yards through brake
and brushwood, and then to take steady aim at
a distance of over a hundred yards at about the
least, requires men in high training and of natural
bodily strength. But your amateur, however
good, is never equal to your gillie, whose eye is
more acute than the best Dollond or
reconnoitrer; whose arm is as steady as a rock, after
any amount of exertion; and who goes up any
number of the stiffest braes without turning a
hair, or apparently without an extra pulsation.
A knowing shot, your gillie, and one who never
neglects an opportunity. They tell a story of a
noble lord who, last year, was out on his moor
with his favourite gillie, when he spied a
noble stag about four hundred yards off. The
nobleman put his rifle to his shoulder, covered
the object, then lowered his piece. "Donald,"
said he. "Me lard!" said Donald. "That's
a fine shot." "Et wad be a faine shot for the
mon as wad het it," was the Highlander's
sententious reply. "Take the rifle, Donald,
sight it carefully, and give it me back—if I knock
over that fellow, the rifle shall be yours." The
gillie took the rifle and sighted it, and gave it to
his master, who fired and killed his stag. According
to his promise, he gave the rifle to the gillie.
Since then he has never been taken nearer than
four hundred yards to any deer on his estate!

Never let any ribald "chaff," any
denunciation of Cockney sport, prevent you from
enjoying a good day's rabbit-shooting whenever
you have the opportunity. With a couple of
mute spaniels and a sharp terrier you may have
an excellent morning's sport, but you must
remember that it is very quick shooting, and you
must keep your gun on the cock, and be ready
to pull the instant you see the rabbit run, if you
would have a chance of hitting him. Be wary,
for rabbits are wonderfully "up to trap;" pretend
not to be looking after them, and you will
throw them off their guard; but if you advance
in a business-like manner, gun in hand, depend
upon it that a flash of white tails is all you will
see of your game—of the older ones, at least; the
younger are less knowing, and more easily potted.

For any hints about wild-fowl shooting, go to
Colonel Hawker, and consult no other. He is a
little rococo and old fashioned; but, in the main,
he is as right now as he was when he wrote, and
his advice is sound, practical, and sensible. Take
it all with that "grain of salt" which the old Latin
proverb prescribes; for though there lived strong
men before Agamemnon, there are not many men
strong enough to undergo all the hardships which
Colonel Peter Hawker lightly touches upon in
his hints on wild-fowl shooting.

It is unusual to take a dog with you when
invited to a day's shooting. But in partridge-
shooting, when you receive the invitation, it is
common to ask the question, "How are you
off for dogs?" and to take them, if wanted.
To take your dogs over, without having
ascertained the wish of your host, will cause you
to be regarded as rather a cool hand. Perhaps,
after all, spaniels are the most serviceable
animals; setters and pointers are not much
used in England, as there is little "laying" for
birds under the new system of farming, and now
turnips are drilled, birds rise before the dogs.

Finally, do not imagine that you can leave
the London season, the jolly nights in the Club
smoke-room, the heavy dinners with ingoted
East Indian uncles, the twenty-one dances
winding up with a never-ending cotillon,
indulged in night after night; and then go down
to Norfolk, or wherever may be the manor to
which you are invited, and shoot. The thing
is impossible; you must be, to a certain
extent, in training; at all events, your wind must
be decent, your muscles braced, and your hand
and eye steady. A long waltz may be good for
your wind, but it will shake your arm; and a
pipe of Cavendish or a couple of extra cigars
will spoil your sport for the day. So do not be
down-hearted at first if you fire wild, or if
the squire and his country friends grin a bit
as the birds fly away unharmed: wait; let your
faith be "large in Time," as Mr. Tennyson has
it; and very soon you will feel your hand getting
in, and you will find that, as sweet Will, who
has something on everything, says, "Your shooting
then is well accounted."

THE LAST OF THE TOLL-GATE.

"SHALL I go round the crescent, sir, and
save the gate?"

It was thus that the unfeeling driver of a
Hansom cab addressed me, through the trap in
the roof of his vehicle, on the night of the 29th
of June last.

"No, no," I said, in tones of virtuous
indignation. "Don't let us cheat a dying institution:
go through, and let me pay my last twopence."

I am willing to confess that I had often been