about them. They are birds which delight in quiet, and if such cannot be had in their home coverts they will seek it abroad elsewhere. It is therefore highly desirable that several acres of good warm lying covert, contiguous to the keeper's lodge, should be kept strictly apart from the woodcock shooters and beaters, and that guns should not be fired in or near the covert so kept, nor beaters of any class allowed to enter it. By adopting such precautions the pheasants may be kept at home, or at all events a good many of them.

Under any circumstance, a good deal of generalship is required in the route and manner of beating a wood. By adopting a judicions course the frightened and straggling pheasants may be turned in the direction of a place of safety, instead of going away from the neighbourhood; but under bad management they will assuredly go astray, and wander very far, and may probably be lost to the preserver. Of course the manner of conducting the beat must depend entirely on the nature of the coverts and the locality generally, and it is the duty of the keepers to be familiar with all such proceedings.

Pheasants are prone to straying, though ever so well fed; and the propensity is considerably increased if they be frightened, or frequently disturbed in any way; there is the greatest risk of disturbing them in windy weather, as they are then very likely to fly down-wind to a great distance, and when once far away from their native coverts they seldom find their way back again. It has often been disputed among sportsmen as to the fact of the long distances to which frightened pheasants sometimes go during the alarm of a battue; but as we are able to give positive information on this head from the results of personal experience, we submit it for the consideration of sceptical readers.

On both sides of a vast moor, with which we are familiar, in the county of Somerset, there are sloping banks of coverts spreading many miles in extent. The game is strictly preserved in both; and although the distance apart from one side the moor to the other is nearly ten miles as the crow flies, it had often been said, and as often disputed, that some of the pheasants, when alarmed by the firing of a great battue, used to flee in terror across the moor to the other coverts. Beaters and others who had watched the birds affirmed it to be a fact, although, of course, they lost sight of the birds in the distance as they flew in the direction of the opposite side of the moor; still they declared their confident belief that many of the pheasants did cross the whole extent of the moor without alighting. The suggestion was said to be confirmed at one time from the fact of some pheasants of a particular breed being turned down in the coverts on one side, and that although there were none of that breed on the other, yet in the course of a year or so, some of the same peculiar breed were found on the other side; and it was said that they could only have got there by crossing the moor. But then it was urged that some of the eggs might have been brought over, and that anyhow they did not believe in the suggestion that any pheasant ever flew across the moor. However, it was one day so warmly disputed, and bets being made upon the subject, a plan was devised for proving the fact-aye or no-were the pheasants in the habit of crossing the moor? Accordingly two score of pheasants were caught on each

estate, and some very carefully-made private marks being made upon them, they were let go again in the coverts. This was done just before the grand battue, when the whole of the coverts on one side would be lashed into terror and alarm by the shooters, and it was considered a fair test. An interval of a day or two taking place between the opposite battues, the results proved beyond a doubt that some of the pheasants had crossed over from one side of the moor to the other, and vice versa, as several of each of the marked birds were found in both woods, and it was clear that they could only have got there by crossing the moor, though ten miles in extent.

Scores of pheasants are taken by poachers every year, despite the strictness and severity of the game-laws and the watching of gamekeepers. And poachers have various ways of taking pheasants; pursuing their unlawful calling both by night and by day. Many of their schemes are ingenious, whilst others are so simple that they appear almost absurd. But pheasants are silly birds in the hands of the poacher, and almost as easily taken as dotterels "those foolish peks." A brace or two of pheasants are a prize to any poacher, and in our opinion, if the game-laws were made more and more severe, it would never effectually put a stop to the notorious system of poaching. There is always a ready sale for pheasants, and no bird is more simply and quietly captured though the woods be ever so extensive, and it might almost be added ever so vigilantly watched. Some of the nefarious contrivances for taking pheasants may be conducted so quietly and secretly, and under the very noses, as it were, of the keepers, and yet without detection, that it is a matter of surprise there is not more of it going on than there really is, particularly as the railroads have now afforded such increased facilities for transit to and from all parts of the king

Pheasants require more vigilant watching than any other kind of game, for the reasons that they are more easily taken than other birds, are a great prize when taken, and the operations may be conducted in open day, without any cumbersome apparatus. We know an instance where an apparently respectable tradesman carried on poaching operations of the kind for several years without detection or even suspicion; and he was at last only discovered through being the fre quent sender of hampers of game by railway to the dealers in town. And then, for a year or more after, the detection only went as far as the sending. He was occasionally seen in the coverts; but as he never appeared to have any unlawful apparatus about him, nor anything bulky, the keepers were completely thrown off their guard; and it was not till long after, that full detection was made, and that, too, after the most rigid watching. Finally he was taken in the act, and it was found that he used a most alluring snare for taking them alive by broad daylight. It was in the power of this man, by the system that he used, to completely strip a covert of its pheasants in the course of a few months, though well watched. Let game-keepers and game-preservers beware of such poachers, for they are more numerous than many would suppose; and their secret system may be, and is sometimes, carried on for years without detection.'

FAIRTHORN,

TIARA,

AND

SNEEZE.

BROOD MARES IN THE STUD OF MR. W. GULLIVER, OF SWALCLIFFE,

BANBURY.

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

BY CASTOR.

These Three Graces were selected for a group at the time Mr. Corbet was down at Swalcliffe making his study of Big Ben.

Old Fairthorn, the bay mare on the left, has the credit of being an own sister to Ellerdale. She was bred by the late Admiral Harcourt, in 1850, and is by Lanercost, her dam by Tomboy, out of Te. sane, by Whisker-The Lady of the Tees, by Octavian. Fairthorn did a deal of hard work about the country to the end of her fourth year, when she went to the stud, where she figures as the dam of Mrs. Rarey, Galileo, and others. Mr. Gulliver bought her in 1860, and the old mare is now stinted to Big Ben.

Tiara, the good-looking chesnut in the centre of the plate, was bred by Mr. Waller, in 1855, and got by Woolwich out of Diadem, by Coronation, her dam by Bay Middleton out of Arbis, by Quiz. Tiara, although not altogether a lucky mare, was a clipper over the T.Y.C. or anything thereabouts; and in 1859 she landed Lord Spencer's Plate at Northampton, and the Houghton Handicap at Newmarket, whilst she also beat two or three large fields after passing into Mr. Gulliver's possession. Tiara went to the stud in 1862, and her first foal, a chesnut colt by Neville, was as a yearling very bloodlike and promising, and indeed, as it struck us, "the bargain" of the whole sale. The mare has, of course, been since continually put to the same horse. Sneeze, the mare in the distance, was bred by Mr. T. Dawson in 1854, and got by Raby out of Pinch, by St. Martin, her dam Margery, by Voltaire-Proserpine, by Rhadamanthus. Sneeze was a

capital porformer at two years old, when she won four or five races right off, while as a three-year-old she ran second to Blink Bonny for the Oaks, beating Imperiéuse, who afterwards won the St. Leger, and ten others. Sneeze was first covered in 1856, but being barren was put into work again, and did not throw her first foal, a filly by Russborough, until 1861; when she passed from Mr. Dawson's into the Swalcliffe stud, and was this season put to Neville.

There should be no greater treat than a day at Swalcliffe, where Mr. Gulliver has more than thirty brood mares, including, beyond those whose portraits we give, Zitella, Golden Pippin, Ada, Oakleaf, Sunflower, Cantatrice, Flame, My Mary, Battalia, Capsicum, Tisiphone, and a number of young fresh mares, put either to Big Ben or Neville. The other stallions at present located here are Compton, Grimston, and Blondin.