rabbit, for in the very last number, as just issued, there is a prize paper by C. Y. Michie, forester, on "Trees not liable to be destroyed by Rabbits," which opens after this fashion: "The destruction of foresttrees, shrubs, and hedges, &c., is so great, and in most cases such an increasing evil, as to call serious attention to the subject. From the circumstance of so much land being under cultivation, summer food is thereby abundantly provided; but when harvest is over, and the turnip crops stored, or the fields occupied with shepherds and their dogs and flocks, rabbits and hares have no retreat but the plantation; and hither they repair both for safety and food, and the plantation suffers in consequence. The destruction of forest-trees, shrubs, and hedges is much greater than appears to the cursory observer; but it is a subject which those who can best speak upon seldom do, from reasons unnecessary to be explained." This is certainly about the coolest thing I think I ever saw offered to the readers of an agricultural organ. In summer, with so much land under cultivation," abundant" food is provided for the rabbits; but in winter, when the harvest is in and the turnips stored, rabbits and hares have nothing for it but to retreat to the plantations and feed on the trees, shrubs, and hedges. What a shame it is that the farmer does not find "abundant" food for the poor things all the year round, instead of suffering them to destroy his landlord's shrubs! I would suggest, however, to the Editor of the Highland Society's Journal that the subject is not yet exhausted, even after treating his subscribers to two articles on trees not liable to be destroyed by rabbits. Would it not be as well to offer another premium for an essay on plants and roots, for varieties of wheat, oats, and turnips not liable to be destroyed by rabbits, and "the destruction of which is much greater than appears to the cursory observer"? But whatever the Scotch Society has been about, the Scotch farmers have been keenly alive to this monstrous evil, and "Down with the Hares and Rabbits!" was the county cry at the last election in Scotland, as it should have been in England, with, moreover, the immediate result that honourable gentlemen who represent county constituencies in Scotland have come to see that they must take up this matter, as it is to be hoped county members in England may come to do—say, in a few years time. Not but that this agitation has been opposed or answered, and by no less a man than Captain Horatio Ross, the famous rifle-shot. Captain Ross has written a long letter to The Times, which, as most of you must have seen, I need not give here, but the point of which is very readily put. "If," says Captain Ross almost in so many words, "if Scotland is to maintain her old renown, if the lairds are to be respected and the people thriving and contented, you may do away with tenant-farmers as soon as you please, but you must on no account do away with hares and rabbits!" To hares in moderation there can be no very great objection. I myself have had many a pleasant day with the harriers, and there are people who are said to be fond of coursing. But with the rabbits there can be no moderation; for, as Lord Granville said in his capital speech at Shrewsbury, "it is doubtful whether anything short of absoluto destruction can keep the animals within proper bounds, as it is, with the exception perhaps of a hard-working curate, the most prolific creature on the face of the earth." I could, indeed, give you figures and facts to show that, like the nails in the celebrated horse-shoe problem, the

rabbit doubles himself over and over again in less than no time. But this is an old story. In the great days of the Roman Empire the inhabitants of a conquered country petitioned the Emperor to free them, not from the soldiers, the priests, or even the taxes, but from the rabbits. They could do nothing against them; and really, as it seems to me, there are people even in these times who might petition to very much the same effect. And, then, as to the damage, I shall not take up the time of the members of this Club by telling them how much the rabbits consume or how much they spoil, how they poison and how they sour the land; but Mr. Sewell Read, a gentleman who now represents the farmers of England in Parliament, declared a year a two since in his own game-ridden county of Norfolk, that it was impossible to farm against hares and rabbits, and I hope soon to hear of his saying as much in "another place.' Again, Sir George Wombwell, one of the best sportsmen we have, and who has just succeeded to the management of the York and Ainsty fox-hounds, consequent on that lamentable accident on the Ure, said, a few months back, in an admirable address he delivered at the Boroughbridge Agricultural Society, on the relations of landland and tenant, "About twelve or fourteen years ago my estate was over-run with hares and rabbits, and I saw directly that if I wanted to get the estate into good order these animals must be swept away from the face of it, so accordingly I had them killed down." That is the speech of a good landlord and a good country gentleman, as well, remember, as of a Master of Hounds. Perhaps you will be content with just one of the latest of these" fearful examples," and for this I turn again to the Societies' journals. The Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Society also publishes its own annual number, in which, amongst other matter, very useful reports are given by the inspectors on prize farms and prize crops, and here in the new Part I find it thus recorded: "To the tenant and occupier of not less than eighty acres, who shall have the best crop of any variety of mangel wurzel, not less than three acres, the prize of £5, awarded to Mr. Henry Neild, or Worsley, near Manchester." And then follows the inspectors' report: "Claimant had 3 acres in mangels. The soil, subsoil, and cultivation same as for the swedes. Manured with 25 tons per acre of farmyard manure and 3 cwt. of guano, superphosphate of lime, and salt, 4lbs. of seed sown per acre, the first week in April. Threefourths of this crop a regular full grown crop of fine bulbs. Would reach nearly 30 tons per acre. One-fourth of the crop near a plantation nearly all destroyed by rabbits. One of the inspectors, who has seen much of rabbits in his time, and of the ill-feeling created by them between landlord, tenants, and gamekeepers, is much surprised that any gentleman will have a rabbit on his estate. Hedgehogs, weazels, polecats, and foxes, are gentlemen in comparison to rabbits, which are mere vermin, and ought to be kept nowhere but on tracts of poor sandy land fenced round by nets. Weazels, polecats, foxes, owls, and hawks, are intended, by nature, to keep down rats, mice, and rabbits. But these are destroyed by gamekeepers. They also destroy the innocent hedgehogs, which live entirely on grubs, worms, and snails. The above crop inspected October the 27th, 1868." Of course the fox is a gentleman-"one of Nature's gentlemen" I should call him, and one of

the handsomest and truest-made gentlemen you will meet about. He may be a little wild, and do a little mischief at times, but we like him all the better for it-particularly when the old villain has got his head set straight away. And against him we are to pit the keeper and the rabbits! The landlord reserves to himself the right to the game and the rabbits and the rats. A really zealous agent, who means to do his duty by his employer, or the framer of a model agreement who is advertising for more business, should certainly take care to fill in-and the rats. If the country gentlemen are to be kept amongst us in the homes of their forefathers, and not driven out to try "French translation and Italian song," let the rats by all manner of means be as strictly preserved in our ricks as the rabbits in our fields; for rat hunting, nine times in ten, is quite as good sport as rabbit shooting. As an old sportsman and popular writer that I knew very well has said, "Shooting in places where rabbits live, for the most part under ground, is the slowest of slow sports, and ferreting to nets is mere butchery. To put the hand into a contrivance such as they boil cabbages in, and squeeze to death a soft little animal is certainly not a recreation worthy of a sportsman, nor is rabbit shooting the sport of a gentleman anywhere, save in wild woodlands, or in such rural districts as disencumber it of all notions of onion-sauce." That same onion-sauce has a deal to answer for. Certainly a rabbit smothered in onions is a dish which a man may enjoy by way of novelty, like boiled tripe or salt-fish, say once or twice in a life-time, but he is about the nastiest thing in the world to keep on with, and we had by far better leave him to the foxes.

And here I will leave him. The late Mr. Robson, when about to deliver himself of something especially facetious, was wont to warn his audience that "this is not a comic song." With more cause I may say that this is not a paper treating on the damage done by game generally, for I have already under the auspices of the Club gone into that matter at some length, and not, I hope, without some effect. My object here has the rather been to show that the preservation or reservation of the rabbit by the landlord is inimical alike to good farming and good sport. The man who pays and over-pays his keeper with such perquisites is committing an act not merely of injustice but of dishonesty; and I do trust that you will all about his own neighbourhood continue to talk him over. The day, I believe, is not far distant when the Legislature will seek to more strictly enforce the principle as to rabbits not being game, but in the interim a deal may be done by talking about it. Many landlords have, to their honour, voluntarily given up their claim to these pests of the farm, now that they know the great injury they cause, and others will have to follow so good a lead. The weak place, so far as England is concerned, is no doubt in the House of Commons; as only look at the front "the farmers' friends" offered there the other night. Mr. Green spoke in the highest possible terms of that Police-Gamekeeper Act; Mr. Newdegate mourned over the calumnies in circulation against game-preserving, and Colonel Brise said farmers were fond of sport. But not one of them denounced the hares and rabbits; for, as Lord Granville says, "none of the county members come within a hundred miles of such a question, and he only feared lest he should be regarded as occupying the position of the fool who rushed in where angels feared to tread." But these angels will most assuredly have to

try their footing here, or it will get very hot for them hereafter; and when we find men like Lord Granville himself and Sir George Womwell speaking out so strongly, we may be well warranted in looking about for more like them. And, then, as to the fox-killer, show him up whenever you have a chance, as the Berkshire yeoman did the Gentleman-in-Waiting at Windsor, or cut him dead as the parson of the parish did; for no man who assassinates a fox can be ever worth knowing. And bear in mind, while these little wretches, the rabbits, are multiplying exceedingly, foxes in certain parts are getting very scarce, and we hear rumours of countries like The Rufford and The Bedale being given over, as half a kennel of hounds in Dorsetshire has just been sold simply from a want of foxes. Indeed, some of our national sports are in but a middling way. The Turf is getting more and more to be a matter of business, and a bad business too; there is a growing practice of making bets and books on boat races and cricket matches, and noblemen have turned higglers and dealers in pheasants and hares. But as a man can hardly make wagers or make money by fox-hunting, let us try our best to keep one old English pastime amongst us pure and undefiled. We have scared the wolf from our woods and forests, we have banished the bustard from our plains, and the very grouse fly before the shepherd and his flock; but it will be a bad day for this country when a fox can no longer be routed from his lair, to

"Die in the open, as a good'un should do."

A FISHING EXCURSION IN THE LOWLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

BY WANDERER.

(Continued.)

Space will not allow us to attempt a description of the numerous objects of interest presented by the old city of Chester; at the same time we may briefly allude to a few, worthy of the visit of the stranger. In the first place perhaps we should mention "The Walls," which carry us back from the nineteenth century to the days of Marius, when, as king over the Britons, in order to protect his royal city from the incursions of his enemies, he erected a fortified wall around Chester. The rude defences of the Britons, however, who were no masons, were of little avail when opposed to the resistless power of Rome. Chester having surrendered to the Romans, soon afforded palpable pooofs of the change. The earth-works or mud-walls of the conquered disappeared before the imperial masonry of the Romans; "and the Walls of Chester, built as only Roman hands could build them, rose majestically in their place, clasping the city in an embrace of stone, defiant alike of Time and of the foe."

Chester Walls, which are mainly of Edwardian character, and afford a continuous promenade, nearly two miles in circumference, are

the only perfect specimen of that order of ancient fortification now remaining in Britain. The Walls of Shrewsbury, York, and other places that occur to us, though interesting enough in their way, yet hide their diminished heads beside the proud old ramparts of Chester. Where is the pen or the pencil that can depict the scenes of glory and renown, so inseparably bound up with the history of these Walls? For three or four centuries the Roman soldier kept watch and ward over them, and over the city; but no sooner had their legions withdrawn from Britain, than the whole island was shaken to its centre by the ruthless invasion of the Picts and Goths.

Deserted by their old protectors, the Britons invoked the aid of the Saxons, under Hengist and Horsa, who, landing at the head of a powerful army, in concert with the Britons, soon' drove the invaders from their quarters within the Walls of Chester.

The Saxons in turn, perceiving the weakness of the unfortunate Britons, determined on possessing themselves of the country, and during the conflict that ensued Chester was frequently taken and retaken by the respective belligerents, and many a fierce and bloody battle raged beneath its Walls. In 607, for instance, Ethelfred, King of Northumberland, laid siege to the city, and after a sanguinary struggle outside the Walls, during which he put one thousand two hundred British monks to the sword, wrested the city from its native defenders. Again, however, the Britons returned to the rescue, and, driving out the usurpers, retained possession of Chester for more than two hundred years.

The Danes were the next invaders of old Chester; but, about the year 908, Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, and Ethelfleda, his Countess, restored the shattered Walls and Gates of the city; in which state they remained,

"Bristling with spears, and bright with burnish'd shields,"

through many a long and eventful epoch of England's history, Chester's faithful safeguard against every foe.

*

"The King's Arms Kitchen," as it it called, was erected in 1861, on the site of a tavern dating back to the days of the First Charles, who is traditionally said to have established the Mimic Corporation still kept up in the house. This is only one of the many strange institutions with which old Chester abounds. But we pass on to the adjoining building, which, once a portion of the old Manchester Hall, and a celebrated mart during the annual Chester fairs, is now transformed by modern enterprise and architectural skill into a commodious Corn-exchange. Proceeding a step or two northwards, a prospect of venerable magnificence suddenly reveals itself. To our left, and so close that we can hear the organ pealing forth its joyous hallelujahs, we have a splendid view of the Cathedral of St. Werburgh, seen here perhaps to greater advantage than from any other accessible point. The first glance will show us that it is a cruciform structure, as most of our cathedrals are, the massive and weather-beaten tower standing just in the centre compartment of the cross. The left wing, though an integral portion of the building is, nevertheless, a separate parish church, dedicated to St. Oswald. The choir itself occupies the entire