this season of the year:-"The weather is now temperate, and the weeds, which were strong and high before, are drying aud 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.

LEAVES FROM MY NOTE-BOOK.

BY WOODCUTTER.

FOREST LIFE IN INDIA.

In consequence of the lateness of the monsoon I did not enter the forest till the end of July, and came out in November, having led the life of a sporting angel. There elephants were scarce, owing to our cutting teak in their favourite haunts. I was fortunate in killing four out of the five tuskers I fired at. The first I dropped at the second shot; the second gave more trouble. Having in the morning stumbled on a brace of bears, they took nine shots before they would deliver up their skins to me. This made a hole in my small powderflask; so that when I had fired twelve shots into the tusker's head, I had not a grain of powder left. The elephant, still strong, but stoneblind, with one eye shot out and the nerve of the other cut right across, I had what I imagine few people have had, namely, a game of blind-man's buff with a wild elephant. I tried to drive him home, but it was no go; so I stood guard over him all that day, and the next morning I found him dead. The ivory brought me £25; so you may imagine they were not sucking teeth. With bison I was not so lucky. I could not at first hit them in the right place, and lost numbers; however, I got more in the way of it before I left, and bagged in all thirteen: two of them such fighting devils. Having expended all my bullets on one iron old buffer, I was reduced to the necessity of tying my hunting-knife to the end of a bamboo, and finishing him in that novel mode: an uncommonly ticklish one, I can tell I should not like to try often. I bagged a very and one you, fair sprinkling of elk (Sambur), spotted deer, and jungle sheep; but, strange to say, only one pig. I had only two shots at the unclean beasts I wounded the other badly, but he got away. I saw no tigers, though I was precious close to them on more than one occasion. I lost a very fine bear, to my intense disgust: the conical ball I was loaded with must, I fancy, have glanced; for I took a deliberate pot at the old fellow at about fifty yards, and down the hill-side he went three steps and a roll over, till he got safe into the dense jungle.

I got an attack of fever, which has stuck to me on and off ever since, and has obliged me to give up campaigning after elephants, which requires a man in the most robust health. The only visitor I had came during my fever bout. He fired but at one elephant; and whilst up with the herd, the man who was carrying the spare gun got so frightened that he pulled the trigger, and sent a two-ounce brass bullet into my best scout's head. Fortunately it only scalped him, and in a month or two he was all right again. A narrow escape for the poor fellow!

FOUR DAYS' SPORT IN THE DECCAN.

A friend of mine who kept Shikar elephants had just returned from his annual two months' trip to the jungles, when I proposed we should

go and beat up the quarters of a tigress with cubs, whom I had fired at some six months before on foot, and as in this part of the country they rarely leave their old haunts unless wounded, there was every chance of finding her again; so off we sent our men to get intelligence as to her whereabouts, and sent our tents to a village about ten miles distant from the spot where we expected to find her, with the intention of beating the hills for bears till our scouts rejoined us. The first day two bears fell to our rifles. The following morning, G— was a little in advance of me, standing on the edge of a deep ravine, when I saw him level and take a deliberate aim with his heavy double-barrel. The first missed fire, and the second sent a magnificent panther bounding across me at the distance of sixty or seventy yards. I gave her a volley, but on she went uninjured. G- had seen her basking on the rock below. I jumped on my horse, and, rifle in hand, rode after her to keep her in sight, which she enabled me to do easily, every now and then stopping to look at me. I saw her safe into a small cave on the side of a ravine. We could, with the aid of an opera-glass, just make out the tips of her ears, and fired six shots from the opposite side of the ravine at her before she would condescend to stir. At last out she came, savage enough, and at us like lightning. We each fired the contents of our three double-barrels, and stopped her charge when about ten yards from us. We bolted to re-load behind some trees; and when we returned she again came at us, and was again rolled over. The third time she sprang to within three yards of us, and dropped dead at our feet. Thirteen bullets had struck her; two of which had gone through her tail. A gamer brute rarely falls to a sportsman's lot to meet.

Shortly after we killed a fine bear, and started another, who made off. I rode after him, and fired no less than five shots from horseback without effect: galloping over rough ground unsteadies one's aim. At last I lost sight of him, and, having only one barrel loaded, was on the point of rejoining my friend, when I sighted a fine blue bull neilghie. Riding down the side of the hill, my coat caught in one of the thick thorny bushes, and out jumped Bruin, standing on his hind legs, within a yard of me, and in a minute would have had me off the horse. Instinctively the rifle was placed against his brawny chest, and my only remaining bullet went slap into the horse-shoe. Round went my adversary, and when the beaters arrived they found him. about fifty yards from where he had stopped me. After this I rolled over a mangy old hyena, going as hard as he could: a pretty shot of nearly two hundred yards.

On the morrow we got news of the tigress, and went to the ground with one elephant. We saw more than once a tiger's skin moving about in the bushes on a rock, some thirty feet high, and fired, apparently without effect. At last, out came the old lady, and a magnificent sight she was. We had killed two of her cubs; and infuriated at the sight of her dead young, she stood lashing her sides with her tail, her fangs glistening, and the sun shining on her beautiful skin. Down she came, with a roar which made the rocks ring, trying to jump on the elephant's head; and would have done so, had not a well-directed ball from G- broke her shoulder, and then she was soon despatched. The third cub, rather more than

half-grown, charged in the most gallant style up to the very feet of the elephant; and the four were on their way to the tents on the elephant's back in less than half-an-hour from the time the first shot was fired.

The third day I went out alone, and put up three bears. The first died with one shot. The other two charged me together round a ridge of rocks. I took a steady aim at the leading one, and gave him the contents of both barrels in his shoulder. Before I could cock my spare gun, after pitching my discharged one at the second bear's head, the brute was on me, and got me down on the ground. In the struggle the gun went off, whether by accident or my own act I never knew, but a two-ounce ball went through Bruin's belly; and luckily for me, in his rage he laid hold of and tore the stump of a small tree against which I had fallen, no doubt fancying it was my leg. This gave me time to cock, and fire the remaining ball through his neck, when he left me, to my great delight. I escaped with no serious damage to anything but my nerves, which did not feel the thing for a day or two after.

PHEASANT

SHOOTING.

PLATE I.-THE RISE.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY HARRISON_WEIR.

Now, Mr. Pope, if you please!

"See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs!

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.

Short is his joy; he feels"—

But that must do for the present, as the numbering of our plate shows there is more to come.

Mr. Weir is something of the Morland of his time-a famous hand at grouping rural scenes, but not often with any great feeling of the sportsman. He is especially good in his association of Shorthorns, Herefords, Southdowns, and other high-bred cattle, which he dresses up for the Argus-eyed patrons of the Illustrated News. He turns, again, with all the relish of a connoisseur to the faithful record of what fancy poultry now are-dwelling on the Adonis form of the Cochin, the varmint look of the game-cock, and the wondrous fashioning of a perfect pigeon. Of the last of these, he has himself, we believe, for some time been a successful exhibitor. Lopeared rabbits and Aylesbury ducks have come as much within his range; but we here fly him at a little higher game, in which the same tasty treatment and faithful execution are observable.

Now then, young gentleman, there's a fair open shot for you! He rises favourably enough in plate the first. Another shifting of the scene will tell the story out.