To make up a paper, I will also give you an account of a trip which I and two others made during the Dussorah when there was nothing to keep us in cantonment. The season was bad, it being soon after the rains, when the whole country was one mass of thick cover; but active minded men like ourselves, not wishing to be idle, made a start upon the chance of at last seeing something. Our first march was about 15 miles, and the first thing seen in the shape of game was a fine cheeta, seated on the road within a mile of the end of our journey. He allowed us to get very near him before he would be stared out of countenance; but we no sooner succeeded in that than he pounced into a patch of jungle close by. The next day we sallied forth after the small game, and succeeded in bagging a pleasing variety of pea-fowl, partridges, pigeons, paddy-birds, hares, hawks, heron, and humming-birds; nothing came amiss to our greedy appetites for slaughter. After two days of this we moved to a place abounding with tigers and pea-fowl, but owing to the abundance of the former we could not get the beaters to beat for the latter; however, by beating over parts of the country not quite so tigerish, we managed to bag a good quantity of pea fowl, floriken, and painted partridge. We also managed to kill a very large tigress, and a hyena. The former measured very nearly ten feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and was killed by three balls through her side in the same instant, while on the carcase of a bul

lock which she had just killed. The hyena was shot from a tree, during the night, while enjoying himself on the carcase of a tattoo, which had been killed two nights before by a tiger. One ball through the back settled him. Having at this place driven what game we did not kill into the haunts of tigers, we moved to a place where we were glutted with three days' shooting at pea-fowl, painted partridge, and gun-pigeons, bagging in each of the two first days between 40 and 50 brace of

three guns.

one kind or another, between But the last day we found them rather scarce, and nineteen brace was all wo could muster. Many of your readers will perhaps laugh at my presumption in recording such shooting, but it is to be understood that we took the thing very quietly, not starting before we had taken in a good stock of hardware for our digestive organs to work upon, which operation generally was not concluded much before ten; and returning by four p.m., thus enjoying our sport and grog, and not injuring our appetites, either for cating or shooting, by too much fatigue. We had a few more days of very good sport at the floriken and partridge, and finished, on our march into cantonment (to breakfast at 10), by bagging two antelope, a bustard, and three floriken, thus concluding our ten days' trip very pleasantly, and entering cantonment well satisfied with everything, and particularly ourselves.

PIEBALD.

VOL. II.

2 B

SIR,

This letter was intended for your last publication, but by same mistake or other it was mislaid; however, I hope it will find its way into the forthcoming one. The subject I am about to treat of has been already discussed by another gentleman, K. K. K. Long may he work at his spirited trade a better sportsman does not exist; he is just the sort of person who I expected would not put up with S. Y. S.'s remarks on the want of spirit in the parties that take the field nowadays. I fully agree with him, and think every picnic at which I have had the happiness to be present does so contradict S.

Y. S.'s assertion, that I am surprised more have not come forward to refute the accusation. A hog-hunting expedition is without exception the most joyous season of a young man's life (at least in this country), and the only time he can allow his spirit any latitude; if he can't play the devil then with impunity, the Lord alone knows when he can. The parties that turned out in the olden times were no doubt numerous-much more so than they are now--the more the merrier; and it is not to be supposed the boisterous mirth of seven or eight can equal that of eighteen or twenty. The only deficiency we now have is in numbers. It is certainly a lamentable drawback to those who love a row, but it cannot be remedied unless such ancient hunters as S. Y. S. and divers others would stir up their dormant spirits and set an example to their contemporary brother sportsmen. I wish, Mr. Editor, you could prevail

on him to take the field once more with his bright boar-spear in his hand, if not with the intention of slaughter, at all events to get an insight into some of the present day's meetings, where proof positive may be obtained as to their emulation in the field, and hilarity and good fellowship at the table. I do verily believe, rather than suffer a blank day, that their offended spirits would be half inclined to give chevy to him. It would remind me of a story I have read, where General Paez, mounted on a d-d rip, whips it into a well mounted Spanish officer. Of course the General must have been a clipping rider, with a knowledge of the country! Hog-hunting has decidedly improved of late, and I think there is more rivalry in the field, and consequently a greater degree of pleasure manifested in the chase nowadays than in the olden times. I can easily account for it. I attribute it to the great scarcity of hog, at least in the Deccan; for every sounder which broke in bygone days, only one solitary fellow can be made to break now; consequently the whole field take interest in him, and it frequently happens with a party, that four or five of the horses are well matched. Conceive, then, Mr. Editor, how eager all must be for the honour of the first poke. Right well do they ply their Brummagems, and right gallantly do they run into their game. And does S. Y. S. mean to say that neither spirit nor emulation are shown in the chase? Pshaw! I suspect he means to insinuate that the hoghunters of his time were a more spirited set of men than the pre

sent ones; but we won't stand that, Mr. Editor. In the days S. Y. S. speaks of the country around must have been well stocked with hog; each man could take one to himself. There might have been a little rivalry, perhaps, but I suspect most of them were killed single-handed, for that is the only way I can account for the immense slaughter which attended those parties. But going after a hog by oneself is stupid fun. I don't mean to say, because a man

SIR,

has no one to ride against, he is to allow the boar to go-in fact, there are very few, if any, who would do so but I mean to say (and I think most hog-hunters will side with me) that half the pleasures of the chase are lost unless you have a friend by your side; and that one good contested run after a plucky boar, with death at the end, is far preferable to 20 killed single-handed, let them be as large as they please.

I have to apologize to you for my dilatoriness in not continuing my notice on Hawking, as I promised in your last number but one. I however hope the following further matter thereon will arrive in time to be inserted in your next number.

The hawks described in my last letter were the long-winged, or, as the native falconers term them, the "black eyed," it being a singular fact that all long-winged hawks have black eyes, while the short-winged ones have the iris white. The principal short-winged ones are the Baz, Bisra, Basha, Skikra. The Baz is a very expensive bird, a cast being valued at 500 or a 1000 Rs. They are unhooded and spring from the fist, making one rapid dart at the quarry, which if they fail to strike, they abandon the pursuit. They are flown at partridges, floriken, and sometimes herons; they are very handsome birds, but afford very little sport. The other three kinds are small, and are grasped under the wing in the hand, whence they are thrown upon the quarry, which generally is partridge, quail, or other small birds. This is reckoned a poor apology of

YOUNGEST SON OF DIANA.

sport by the lovers of falconry, and when compared with the fine, rapid, and sweeping flight of the byree or shya at its quarry, must be tame indeed. Fresh casts of hawks are constantly required to supply the place of the old ones, who after the first year or two get cunning in their flights, and either make a clear bolt of it, or show such little game in attacking their quarry, that all sport

ceases.

Some native princes follow up the sport of hawking very enthusiastically, and it is a pursuit more suited to their tastes than to ours. They carry it to a greater perfection, doubtless, than we do, always having out large parties of horsemen, who are dispersed down the plain, to keep sight of the hawk, when unhooded at the kurkurees, a species of crane, remarkable for taking very long flights. The expense of such an establishment would be too burdensome to the purses or pay of the "sahib logue" in India, who find so many other ways and means of making the rupees fly. My small experience of the flights of hawks in pursuit of their quarry prevents me from laying down with certainty what is the longest distance

they have been known to go, but from what I recollect having heard my friend Mr. E. say, I should think that it was seldom upwards of two miles. The pace is, however, tiptop all the time; and how a man in England can have nerve to follow the hawk over an enclosed country, intent on it, I can't imagine; besides, it is no sport at all, for you lose all the fine darts and swoops of the falcon at the game. I see Hawking is noticed in the March number of the Sporting Magazine for 1832, by the Hermit in London, wherein he mentions a flight with Col. Wilson's hawk at a heron, of about five miles, only one horseman in with the falconer, and all

riding at the very top of their speed all the while. The field no doubt was large, the sport being so rare, and no doubt it became select; very soon the pace must be quite à la Melton, if not surpas sing it; and when fences and all the other impediments civilization has thought fit to confine fair nature in are taken into consideration, it must be awful. I hope, now I have introduced this once favoured able and experienced writer in the sport, that the pen of some more art of Falconry will continue to supply your pages with further accounts on the subject.

HIGH FLIER.
Dharwar, August 20th, 1832.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Not in dreamy slumbers, like the wearied huntsman, did the youngsters of the party pass the night. Mirth and merrimentrevelry, song, shout, and laughter kept most of them awake. Many a trick was played, and many a practical joke carried into execution, and when day dawned, half of the tents were lying on the ground, cut down by some nocturnal wags; articles of dress were scattered about in all directions; here a shoe and there a shirt; boots pendent from numerous bushes; pantaloons in leathern stiffness dangling across tent ropes; sheets like flags that had "braved the battle and the breeze" floated in tattered stripe from the baubul branches; stockings were sticking on tent-pegs; hats, caps, jackets, and waistcoats were strewed about; and cotton bedding torn to pieces variegated the grass with their white fragments. Beside his