the rookery for hire during the present season, by which he would not only prove the means of indulging some keen sportsmen with a vast fund of animating sport, but make a ready market of the birds which might be shot off his premises. Some rookeries are encouraged upon a much more extensive scale than others, whilst, in cases, I have noticed two and even more on a single estate. Others there are who will not destroy the young colonies, but on the occasion of every alternate year give the birds the opportunity of increasing in numbers, and I have known, again, instances where these blackfeathered communities have been so much regarded that the owners of them would not have shot them under any circumstances whatever. This prohibition is not, however, of a general tendency, and is not seemingly likely to become so. There were, some few years since, two very extensive rookeries at Totteridge Park, in Hertfordshire: the one was open for sport during one season, whilst the other was closed against the gunner; so that there was observed an annual succession of changes in the establishment, and this plan regularly kept up, allowed of a sufficient complement of the birds to be sacrificed to meet the contingent demands of each separate season.

There existed a well-stocked rookery also at Pennington, a small hamlet near Lymington, in Hampshire, the property of Colonel Salmon, who never suffered a fowling-piece to be discharged near its presence. The Colonel and his sporting friends and acquaintances invariably made use of a cross-bow upon the occasion of killing the rooks, and so truly expert was the owner of this preserve in handling his bow, that he was never known to have failed in bringing down every single bird he aimed at. This practice became eventually so familiar to him that he at the distance of thirty yards would drop a rock when upon the wing, and at forty yards off would stun a house pigeon settled on a dove-cote. He was an artillery officer, and observed that he entertained a very strong objection to exercise much noise in the use of projectiles, and he certainly was as successful in his silent mode of doing execution as if he had used a blunderbuss to accomplish his object with. It has become a general practice now-a-days to use the rifle in rookshooting. Since the rifle volunteer movement has occupied such general attention throughout the United Kingdom, the projectile under consideration has been found to take the lead of every other missile projectile; and as there are so many modes of encouragement held out by interested parties to initiate the volunteers into a proper system of ball-firing, there can be no reason to doubt but that the excellence in winning with the rifle will become a chief characteristic in the militia establishments of Great Britain. Be that as it may, some hits have already been effected for prizes under this particular head, and like the backwoodsman on the American continent, in the course of time the rifle in the hands of an Englishman will prove as killing an implement of aggression, at a long range of distance, as does the fowling-piece loaded with shot at a shorter range of measurement.

Some years since I was intimately acquainted with a Captain Russell, of the 16th Lancers: he had retired from the regiment, and resided at Lyndhurst, in Hampshire. He was an adept at handling the crossbow, and would occasionally repair to a spot occupied by oak trees, upon the acorns of which woodpigeons in the fall of the year were

wont to feed. In the evenings these birds would take shelter and roost for the night, and the Captain has repeatedly returned home with eight and more of them at one time, which he has killed by means of his accurate and undeviating aim, achieved by this his favourite projectile. He has informed me that upon many occasions he has taken no less than six large acorns from the craw of one of these wood-pigeons, besides a farrago of other granous and seminous matter; and he has literally wondered how it was possible for birds of their size to receive into their craws such an unseemly quantity of food at one and the same time. He further stated to me that at the spring of the year he has had occasion to open these birds' maws, and that he has discovered them to contain from two to three ounces of barley, without any other kind of food being mixed up with it, which fact denoted to him that these pigeons must have been busily feeding on the newlysown lands, and that in instances where they obtained to any numbers, they must have consumed nearly half the seed there had been sown in the soil by the hands of the husbandman.

From this status, made by the Captain, the voracity of these birds. must prove incalculable, and whilst they are permitted to harbour near the locality of newly-sown lands, they must produce the most disastrous effects upon the agricultural resources of the husbandman. This archer in his own right further remarked that he had killed several rooks in the same vicinity, and had opened and examined them; but he detected no grain in them, but a vast quantity of half-digested worms was mixed up in their craws. There was a far-famed rookery at Newmarket some years ago, the seat of Lord Francis Osborne, and the gents of the University of Cambridge had occasionally permission in the season to enjoy a day's sport on the grounds; but they were not suffered to make "pot-shooting" upon the spot, for the lord set a due value on his rooks, and he thought that as the Gog Magogs were not a long remove from his own more immediate seat, the same might afford a sufficient share of sport and entertainment to the " gownsmen as could a war of extermination against his nigrose colonies. This liberty has, I learn, been curtailed, and there is no rook-shooting now left for many miles around Cambridge, which is as barren of these birds as London.

Ten years since, a pair of rooks visited the garden of Fife House at Whitehall-gardens, where they constructed their nest, and having brought up the young brood safely, betook themselves to some remote spot, and were not seen till the following year, when they again returned and resumed their former nidificatory functions. The same birds brought up their young charge with success, but left the retreat when the young rooklings were well up on the wing, and returned to that neighbourhood no more. In a sycamore tree in Wood-street, Cheapside, a pair of these birds took up their habitation for several successive years. They were quite familiar with the inhabitants and the people that kept the Cross Keys inn in that neighbourhood, but they became ultimately harassed and annoyed by a set of idle boys, and took their departure. The nearest rookery to the metropolis is that which has been recognised from time immemorial, in Kensington Gardens. There is no liberty given to the public by the Commissioners of Works to intrude upon these birds, who appear to enjoy free and uninterrupted possession

of their long established freehold. Here they breed year after year, as they have been accustomed to do for more than a century, and are to be observed during the day feeding in the grassy lands, in the immediate vicinity of busy London. Like the wildfowl in the Royal parks, they suffer no intimidation from the multitudes with whom they are associated. They rob no farmer of the fruits of his harvest: none furtively indulge in the growth of the suburban citizens' garden crops. They come home at night on leisure wing, and take up their abode in the elm-trees which overshadow the public walks and thoroughfares of the palatial residences of ancient Kensington; and at early morn, during the breeding season, they give utterance in a thousand accents, which convey to the cars of the surrounding inhabitants, those happy interassociations, which bring to their notions the tranquillity and self-contentment of a country life, which is estranged from the tumult and turmoil attendant upon city sameness. It is the picturesque feature so simply but artistically expressed in the phraseology "rus in urbe," that imparts so high a zest to those who reside within the precincts of a homely nursery of rooks and starlings.

The quantity of rooks sent to London for consumption at this season of the year is comparatively small; nevertheless they have been found to increase every year, and latterly, large importations have arrived from France and Belgium, and sell at remunerative prices. The season for them being extremely limited, they do not make so redundant an appearance in our London markets as they otherwise would do, whilst the Ostend rabbits completely inundate our shops and warehouses with their presence. Whilst rooks are selling at the rate of one shilling per two couple, the continental rabbits are being retailed at sixpence per lb.; and as the latter are better recepted by the public than the former, on account of the trouble which is necessary in preliminarily preparing them for the table, rabbits will invariably take the lead of the latter, as an edible commodity. Many there are, who entertain a prejudice to rooks, fancying that they have a strong carrion flavour. They are thoroughly deceived and mistaken. When these birds are skinned and their back-bones are removed (which latter are somewhat bitter to the taste) the same will equal in taste a young pigeon; and were it not that their colour operated against them, they would not, when placed in a pie or otherwise cooked, be contradistinguished from the former bird in flavour or appearance. Plovers (lapwings) when cleaned and trussed, are frequently substituted for young rooks. The young rooks may be known from the old ones by examining their bills: those of the old birds will be hard and horny, and partake of a rough and dirty complexion, whilst the bills of the young birds will be soft and flexible. The feathers comprising the wings of the young will also assume a juvenile appearance of an unfledged quality, whereas that of the old birds will be hard and fully confirmed. Rooks may be stewed so as to prove very palatable, besides transforming them into a pie; they may also be potted after the manner pursued with regard to grouse. They should not be eaten after the middle of June, for they will then feed promiscuously, being fully enabled to shift for themselves, and will assume a gross habit of body, devoid of the peculiar delicacy which accompanies their meat when they are fed by that peculiar pabulum provided for them by the parent birds, when they are confined to the precincts of their nests,

EMPEROR,

WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL HUNT STEEPLE CHASE, AT WETHERBY, 1865.

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

BY CASTOR.

Emperor, bred by Sir George Strickland in 1858, is by Orpheus out of a half-bred mare.

Orpheus, bred by General Peel in 1849, is by Orlando out of Malibran by Whisker, her dam Garcia by Octavian out of Shuttle,— Katherine by Delpini. Orpheus came out as a two-year-old at Newmarket, but was better known when knocking about the country at welter weights; his chief performance being winning the Granby Handicap at Croxton Park, where he beat a very good field. His stock have been running for the last five or six seasons, and he is the sire of the following winners: Nelia, Luna, Lyra, Orphene, Adonis, Blondin, Nu, and Emperor. Sir George Strickland, who has had Orpheus for many seasons, has been using him very extensively, both for thoroughbred and half-bred mares; and in 1864 Sir George reared no less than fourteen thorough-bred foals by the son of Orlando. The dam of Emperor has also thrown an own brother to him, that has been named Emperor the Third.

The Emperor himself passed from his breeder's possession into that of Mr. James Hall, the Master of the Holderness-a gentleman who has also some repute for buying in and making up young hunters, and we have seen some very capital shows from his stable at the Yorkshire agricultural meetings. Mr. Hall had evidently some opinion of Emperor, for at the Thirsk Spring Meeting of last season he matched his horse against Lord Middleton's Friar Tuck, at 12st. each, over two miles, for £50; when, ridden by Mr. Wood, the Emperor won as he liked, by some ten lengths. At York Spring, in a month or so afterwards, he ran a good second, in a field of ten, to Mr. Wilkinson's Rosemary, for the Union Hunt Plate, for bonâ fide half-bred hunters, two miles and a half. Emperor, however, was objected to previous to starting, on the ground of insufficient pedigree on the dam's side; but the steward decided that this was not proved. With such antecedents, and combining the appearance of a hunter with a certain turn of speed, Emperor, at the sale of Mr. Hall's horses at York, in December, made 400 gs.; his purchaser being Mr. Henry Chaplin, a well-known supporter of the Burton Hunt, but yet more renowned of late for the spirit with which he has entered to the turf by the high prices he has given for Breadalbane and Broomielaw. After being hunted with Lord Doneraile, Emperor was entered or

The Grand National Hunt Steeple Chase of 10 sovs. each, 5 ft., and only 3 for subscribers who did not name (to go to the fund) with 250 added, for regular hunters that have not been in a public training-stable since 1st January, 1865, and that have never won any steeple-caase hurdle race, or flat race, value 20 sovs., ex