situation: it is that they have been so often disturbed from their usual haunts, that they naturally endeavour to seek some place of peace and security.

In the commencement of the season, turnips and potatoes are the most likely places to find them in during the early part of the day; after which they usually seek the corn-stubbles-that is, towards four o'clock in the afternoon. If found basking in such situations, unless you come upon them very suddenly, they will generally run down the ridges; to obviate which in some measure, it is desirable to encourage the dogs to beat across them as much as possible. The middle or side of a corn-field is a very usual place of resort, and is no doubt selected as being most capable of observation, and to enable the birds to watch with greater certainty: these habits are, doubtless, acquired from experience. Nevertheless, they will sometimes be met with in the corners of fields, if such sites present attractive shelter, and are more commonly resorted to in turnip or potato-fields than in cornstubbles. They may also sometimes be found under the warm shelter of a hedge-row in windy weather, on which occasion they will frequently rise singly; but it requires a very steady, experienced old dog to find them: they will lay so close that they are beaten over, and then rise when you have passed by them. The most certain way to get at them is for an attendant to beat with a stick, when, if there be two guns, by taking each side of the hedge the great probability is that one will obtain a shot. Brambles, fern, and long grass, are not now usually found in the borders of hedge-rows on highly-cultivated farms; but when they are, they present most attractive resorts. Partridges will also shelter themselves in dry ditches, which are covered with briers and other rubbish; they are difficult to find in them, as setters and pointers cannot, in general, make any progress along them; indeed, if they could, they would in general be out of sight: a wellbehaved spaniel is the best kind of dog for this purpose, and, if properly broke, is a most serviceable companion.

During the early part of the season, pheasants are commonly found in the open, especially under the shelter of thick hedge-rows, where, upon being found, they will often run a considerable distance, not unfrequently threading the hedge, by which the best dog on earth is sure to be puzzled. All cock pheasants will sometimes take straight across a field, and thus unseen escape; but, when two persons are shooting in company, the most effectual plan is for one to beat up the opposite side of the hedge to the other; the game must then either run the length of the fence or take wing, although they will not on all occasions rise even at the termination of the hedge. I have known them travel from one field to another without any chance of inducing them to present their beautiful plumage to the fowling-piece; in fact, it is their very general practice to run some distance before they will spring, even in covert. As the season advances, they take more constantly to the woods, where the usual method now adopted is that of forming battue-parties, and besiege the game of all descriptions which may be found therein after the manner of an enemy levying devastation on the inhabitants of a fallen city.

Among those objects of the sportsman's attention which have changed less in their habits than any other, are woodcocks and snipes. This is easily explained: they are wilder in nature than pheasants and partridges; their haunts are farther from the habitation of mankind; they seek the woods and marshy spots; are here to-day, and no one knows where to-morrow. They are not in any degree dependent upon man for their sustenance, neither is it possible, that I am aware of, to place food of any kind within their reach; if it were, it might be a means of rendering considerable attraction to certain spots. I apprehend it is in search of their food that they are induced to ramble, and are consequently so uncertain to find. Having arrived at a covert, either not meeting with a supply of food, or the quantity being short and quickly consumed, they find it necessary to depart in search of some more propitious spot. This appears to me to be the most rational way of accounting for their constant wanderings. In beating for woodcocks, a knowledge of the place to which they resort is of great assistance, as they are for the most part found very near the same spot. The vicinity of the wet soaks, or springs, are the most usual; especially during frost, when the ground in other parts is too hard to permit of their obtaining any sustenance. By going directly to those situations, and afterwards beating the covert throughout, should the object of pursuit not be found without, much time and labour may be saved. This is, in my opinion, the most interesting and exciting description of shooting which our island boasts of; especially if it be followed in the correct and legitimate way, with a clever team of well-broke spaniels. They are, however, difficult to meet with, and require much time and labour to bring under proper subjection. If they range too wide, they will flush their game beyond the range of the gun; and, if they are to be perpetually called to, the game will be continually disturbed, and run off before found, as in covert-shooting various other species may be sought for besides woodcocks indeed, it is the diversity of those birds (pheasants), hares, and rabbits, that renders this kind of shooting so superlatively interesting. The most sportsmanlike and agreeable party that can be formed for this purpose is two or three guns-not more-and two beaters. That number of the latter are indispensable; but when the party is composed of half the rabble from the village, I must confess it does not coincide with my ideas of sport. It may be argued that, under such a course, more game may be brought to bag if pot-hunting be the incentive. I admit the efficacy of the plan; but, if sport be the object, it cannot be had without the assistance of the canine race. In small coverts, thickly stocked with pheasants, it is very certain that many will get away without a chance of being shot at; but then they may be found again in the adjacent fields and hedge-rows, where the science and sagacity of the setter or pointer are most beautifully applied. In some instances, where the covert is on the outskirts of the manor, and the game which escapes cannot be followed, there may be some excuse for employing biped beaters; but they should be accompanied by a good steady old setter and a retriever.

(To be continued.)

A SPORTING EXCURSION TO NIAGARA AND THE

CANADIAN LAKES.

BY SARON,

"Here may I roam at large: my business is,
Roaming at large, to observe."

WORDSWORTH.

It was upon a lovely day in the year 183- (but a fig for dates, as the old jest-books say), that a party of right merrie youths, of which I formed one, left Quebec upon a sporting excursion to Niagara and Lake Huron. We had provided ourselves with two small tents, some camp equipage, buffalo skins-which we used as bedding, a store of dried provisions including potted meats of every description, some jars of turtle, kegs of brandy, gin, whiskey, and rum, pipes, cigars, rifles, guns, powder, bullets, shot, books; with some ornaments of beads, steel buttons, ribands, and gold lace, as presents to the Indians; and, with this cargo, we left Quebec by the mail steamer. Nothing worth recording occurred during our passage to Montreal: we landed for a few minutes at William Henry, or Sorel, as the natives call it, a fortified station on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, distant about a hundred and twenty miles from the capital of Lower Canada. It was with a feeling of painful recollection that we visited this spot, for here that noble-hearted and truly popular Duke of Richmond, father of the present noble head of the house, received that unfortunate bite of a tame fox that he was attempting to separate from a dog that was worrying him, and which terminated so fatally in hydrophobia. The circumstance is too well known, from having already been most vividly and feelingly described in the pages of a cotemporary, by the talented author of "The Sportsman in France," to require further comment; but there was one anecdote connected with this event that has not yet appeared in print, and which, to those who profess to place faith in dreams, may not be uninteresting. The Duke had proceeded to the upper provinces, leaving his family at Quebec, to join him upon a particular day at Montreal; one of his sons, Lord William Lennox, who had not even been aware that his father had been bitten, arrived at Montreal on the morning preceding the day on which the noble Duke was expected to return; great preparations were being made in that city by the military and residents to welcome the truly popular and illustrious governor on his return from his official inspection; all was joy and gaiety-balls, dinners, amateur racing were being pepared to give additional zest to his grace's reception. Alas, how speedily were the sounds of mirth and gladness turned to notes of woe and misery! A party had assembled at the Mansion-House Hotel, consisting of all the sporting characters of the Quebec and Montreal garrisons, talking over the approaching races: it

was "a great feast of reason," while gin sling, sherry cobler, mint julep, furnished the "flow of the bowl." The party of whom Lord William Lennox was one, broke up at an early hour; his lordship—who, albeit not quite the Crichton of field sports, as described by the author already quoted (Frederick Tolfrey, Esq.), was, in those days, a good gentleman jockey, and certainly rode more winners than any-one elsewas to be up at an early hour, to give a horse a gallop that he was to ride upon the first day. Upon drinking the Doch-an-dorrach, or parting cup, it was remarked that Lord William Lennox had never been in higher spirits; and in those days we can vouch for his having been one of those whose "flashes of merriment were wont to set the table in a roar we mention this to prove that no feeling of his father's accident or illness could have been upon his mind. retired to rest, to dream, as we should have imagined, of the orange jacket and black cap (then the Richmond colour), of balls, or of the two dark-eyed, New York beauties then sojourning at Montreal; but such was not the case. When the morning dawned, one of the Duke's friends entered the room; his lordship sprung up, and before the other could utter a word, said "I fear you have bad news; I dreamt all night I heard the minute guns being fired, and that my father was "he hesitated, "that he was dead."

He

"Not so," replied the kind-hearted friend, "but his Grace has had a violent attack of illness. We trust, however, it will subside; in the mean time, if you like to join the Duke, one of his staff are about to proceed to Richmondville (a new township, where his grace had been attacked with the fatal illness), and the carriage will be at the door in half an hour."

Lord William did proceed, and when within twenty miles of the township, received the sad intelligence of his father's demise. The story of the dream was communicated to me by one who often heard it told by his lordship himself, and certainly it was passing strange that

"Dreams, the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain phantasy,"

should in this instance have proved true.

To proceed with our excursion. We reached Montreal, where we remained a couple of days, enjoying the hospitalities of one of Her Majesty's "crack" regiments quartered there, and then left for La Chine, where our bateau awaited us. This village is most romantic, and, from the number of voyageurs that land and embark there, is full of life and bustle. On the opposite side of the St. Lawrence is an Indian settlement, belonging to the Cachenonaga tribe, a race sadly degenerated through their intercourse with the white population. Here we passed our day in the hopes of finding an interpreter who would be induced, for a proper consideration, to accompany us as an interpreter; but we found so much extortion and drunkenness among the natives, that we declined the numerous offers that were made us the moment the object of our mission had been promulgated in the small colony. At sunrise the following morning, we set out on our voyage, our crew consisting of "four oars" and a steersman to each boat. The passage, for many weary miles, was flat and unprofitable,

for so strong was the current in many places, that our boatmen could no longer use their oars, and were compelled to pole the boats along, keeping as close to the shore as possible; so violent too was the exertion that the men were obliged very frequently to cease from their labours. Each of these resting places is denominated une pipe by the French Canadians, of whom our crew was composed, they being allowed to stop and fill their pipes. With equal justice might the places be called "un verre d'eau de vie," for they never failed upon these occasions to "moisten their clay," with a glass of brandy. In short, what with the nicotian weed, and spirits, the men, as was remarked by one of our party, were ever "Bacchy plenus." A pipe and three-quarters of an English mile were synonymous. For the first two days, although we often landed with our guns, we succeeded in killing nothing except time: on the second morning, crossing the Utawas river, we gained the mouth of the south-west branch of the St. Lawrence, and a splendid scene presented itself. Each river comes dashing down into the lake over immense rocks, with an impetuosity which, seemingly, nothing can resist; huge branches and roots of trees, broken rafts, are hurled down into the rapids, and woe betides the frail bark that comes in contact with them: frequent accidents have occurred owing to the want of skill or negligence of the boatmen. We now entered the rapids of Les Cascades, and Le Saut de Buisson, and hearing that the neighbouring woods were full of wild pigeons, quitted our bateaux, and divided ourselves into two parties. Our rendezvous, settled for six o'clock, was to be at the village of the Hill of the Cedars, where whoever arrived first was to prepare dinner and beds. We were each to do our best to fill our game bags, as we had agreed not to open our store of provisions until we had reached the upper wilds. The party I happened to be with was most successful, having bagged a considerable quantity of wild pigeons, which resemble very much the English woodpigeon. The other detachment, however, proved themselves the better "caterers," for great was our surprise upon landing at the spot of our rendezvous to find such a display of game laid out as would have gratified even the heart of Prince Albert at Blair Atholl: two splendid deer, some beautiful-looking trout, a couple of tarapins, or land tortoise, besides a bag-full of pigeons. We strongly suspected, as it afterwards proved to be the case, that silver shot and hooks had been used; and so it was: our detached comrades had fallen in with some Indians, from whom they had obtained their venison and fish; these delicacies, however, were not less acceptable upon that account. As our other party had only landed a quarter of an hour before us, no arrangement for dinner had been made; we therefore lost no time in pitching our tents, lighting our fires, and preparing our repast. Fortunately, in the latter we received the assistance of a Scotch woman, a settler, who "lent a hand," and took charge of the tarapin soup; a Canadian woman offered her services in dressing a dish of stewed cucumbers with cream, a favourite plat in those parts, whilst we all put our shoulders to the wheel, or rather fire, and boiled, fried, roasted and stewed, fish, flesh, and fowl, in every possible way. There is an old saying,