or Warlock should never have beaten, or Bonnie Scotland coupled him. However, all is well that ends well, and with two other races the most successful of Doncaster Meetings came to an end. Our clothes were once more packed up, the skirmishes and struggles at the station were safely got through, and we turned our backs on the pleasant little town for another long year.

The ensuing week was full of very pleasant "little goes." Prince of Orange made light of Pantomime, at even 18lbs. for the three years, in the Leicestershire Handicap; and Lance did his three miles. for the Queen's Plate, against Lady Tatton, as well as he did his three-quarters at Doncaster. The mare was more successful at Pontefract, where Fisherman was not "i' the vein ;" and Mr. Mellish swept everything before him, with Adamas, Tame Deer, and Pope Joan, at Beccles, where racing propensities have slumbered for some seven years. The Mayor and the Committee would, however, have shown themselves better and wiser sportsmen, if they had not got up a stupid fussy contest with the Vicar, because he did not wish to have the church-bells rung on the occasion. It does not advance the interests of the Turf, to fight for such anise and cummin as bellringing, at the risk of offending the prejudices of neutrals; to say nothing of the religious world, who fairly hug the memory of Palmer, as a blessed type of what all racing men must of necessity be. Fulbeck's defeat by British Queen, at 3st. for his year, was the event of Walsall; £550 was added, and produced good sport at Cardiff; and the handicapping at Manchester was remarkably successful. It seemed quite strange, when we walked over Kersall Moor, the other day, to find The Grand Stand a Sunday-school, and to see the children walk from it to a church, which seems built exactly on the site of the late T. Y. C. post. But a very slight remnant of the course remains. We are glad to observe that Mr. Topham has made 8st. 12lbs. his raising weight for the Great Autumn Cup, and it is to be hoped that Messrs. Johnson and Frail will soon follow suit at their meetings; and as regards the Cesarewitch, we doubt whether Isaac Day's Simon Pure is as yet in the market.

Cub-hunting seems to have been prosperous everywhere, and the cubs are as plentiful as the grouse have been scarce. One new hunt is being formed, and they have, we hear, laid out eighty pounds on foxes at something like thirty shillings a-head. Joe Maiden has been sticking gallantly to his cub-hunting, and is as cheery as ever, with his left leg in the grave; but we fear there is only a slender chance of his being able to ride to hounds again. Joe is very active on his walking leg, but he at present wears a bent one when he is on horseback, and has his crutch at hand when he alights. His subscription has progressed well; but we trust it will be much larger yet, as a finer specimen of a huntsman worthy we do not possess. It is hard-lines for a man to be cut down with so many years still left in him, but it is perhaps preferable to the agony he suffered for season after season with his leg. He was not out once with the North Staffordshire all last season, and Mr. Davenport, the master, acted as huntsman. The first injury arose from his slipping with it into a copper in the Cheshire kennel. A wound was thus formed in the calf which refused to heal, and in after-years the leg was broken from a fall, which ren

dered recovery hopeless, and it was taken off below the knee. His career began when he and Will Staples (now a comfortable sixteen-stone publican at Lea Bridge in Shropshire) weighed about 8st. 71b. each, and whipped-in to Sir Bellingham Graham. His son, Joe Maiden, is whipping-in somewhere in Ireland, and old Will Danby is now the huntsman of the Hurworth pack. There is a rumour that Earl Fitzwilliam's hounds may hunt four days a-week this season. Harry Sebright is now whipping-in to Cox with the Duke of Cleveland's hounds, and one of the Tredwell's (a family as inexhaustible in the hunting-field as the Edwardses once were on the turf), has taken his place at Mr. Lumley's. Yorkshire has two wonderfully rising huntsmen in Ned Owen, of the Badsworth, and Ben Morgan, in Mr. Willoughby's country; the latter especially has quite astonished the Tykes by his riding. Tom Rance, of the Cheshire, still sticks to the whipper-in line, as he has done for these seventeen years there under Joe Maiden, Markwell (who has no hounds now), and George Whitmore, and he has few rivals, if any, in that line.

The Duke of Beaufort will, we believe, hunt his own hounds whenever he is out; but Will Stansby, who formerly whipped in to Will Long and then hunted the Worcestershire, is with them now as first whip. Will Long, who resides at Bertha Cottage, at the edge of Badminton Park, is often out cub-hunting with his old favourites. Nothing could be kinder or handsomer than the Duke's letter to him when he retired on a pension last season. He served four Dukes of Beaufort, and whipped in to Philip Payne for seventeen seasons, and then hunted the hounds for eight-and-twenty more. We hear that

Mr. Assheton Smith is better, but it seems doubtful whether he will ever mount the scarlet again. He was not with his hounds last year, except in a carriage, and left everything to George Carter, whose son whips in to Tom Sebright. So far, the Harboro' country is without hounds. It is said that a fair-sized draft from Mr. Sutton's hounds were offered as a present to a gentleman in that neighbourhood after the last April sale, but that he declined them. The late Sir Richard's stud-groom is with Baron Rothschild, and old Tom Day is in residence at Quorn, whither Dick Burton has, we believe, also removed. Boothroyd has a strong task before him, and we trust to report good progress" by the time November is out.

PIKE AND PERCH.

ENGRAVED BY J. H. ENGLEHEART, FROM A PAINTING BY H. L. ROLFE.

Pike and Perch, two of the most sporting fish Piscator ever truck, come happily associated. The former, according to phemera, is in "his body comely to look at; and if he could hide

head, his green-and-silver vesture would attract many admirers." . Nobbs, another authority, writes thus on the sport he affords at

this season of the year:-"The weather is now temperate, and the weeds, which were strong and high before, are drying and falling to the bottom. The rivers are generally low, which is a great advantage, because the fish are more easily found in their harbours. They leave the shallows and sands, and lodge themselves in pits and the deepest places. A pike is now very firm and fat, having had the benefit of the summer's food; and if the weather continues open, and not extraordinarily cold, you may take in part of November, which will add much to your sport, because the weeds will be more wasted and rotten; but if a flood comes in October, or the beginning of November, you may lay aside your tackling for the season; for great rivers, like great vessels, being long in filling and slowly mounting to their full height, are again long in falling and settling, so that the water will be thick and out of order, unless frost or fair weather comes to clear it. In small brooks and rivulets it is not so: you may fish in them again within a week or less after the flood."

We can so bring on our fish in the height of the season, either for sport or mere eating. You may try for him at "great advantage," and he is moreover "firm and fat." At such a period he is perhaps worthy the cook's art, though, for our own part, if we do ever land another pike, it will certainly not be as a pot-hunter. A far more delicate fish is the perch-good in almost any way, of any size, or at any time-whether you simply dine from the strength of your own basket, or recognize him in all that good company Mr. Quartermaine introduces you to, at Greenwich. As far as fishing for him goes, any one ought to be equal to it. With a man to bait for you, it is nice easy sport, and we shall never forget the pleasant evening we had but last summer, when on Windermere: the only end to the fun was when you got tired of pulling them out. Mr. Stoddart, of high repute in those quarters, calls the perch " a simple fish and one easily captured." The only proper sport appears to be, when they get to a size:"Large-sized perch, however, are not so easily provoked to bite as the small fry, and will frequently despise the worm or maggot, so acceptable to their juniors. To these saucy epicures, no greater delicacy can be presented than a live minnow; and the manner of baiting the hook with this lure is extremely simple, although I confess somewhat tinged with cruelty. It consists merely in runuing it, from side to side, through the back-bone below the dorsal fin. When this is properly done, and the minnow gently projected forwards to the spot which the perch are presumed to occupy, it will be found to retain life for some time, and, while struggling at the requisite depth, by support of the float, prove irresistible to the wariest and daintiest fish. But I have no intention to enlarge further on the subject of perch-fishing. Proficiency in capturing this simple fish is easily acquired; and the few instructions which contribute to its speedy attainment are to be met with in almost every treatise upon angling."

That last sentence is certainly a stopper. The art of perch-fishing, like the art of getting in debt, or in love, or in liquor, is "easily acquired;" and so we don't prompt aspiring youth any further. Let him help himself.