out of fashion." For the sake then of the best and fairest of our species, let it be hoped, that fox-hunting and "the evergreen" may flourish for ever!

The best spot to fix upon for making an artificial gorse cover is, if possible, upon rather a lightish soil, which is rendered the more difficult from the country in which it is most desirable being grass, and consequently, more frequently than not, a stiff clay; however, let the soil be what it will, it should be in the very best state of cultivation, previous to the seed being sown; it should be fallowed and well cleaned, and prepared in every respect as for a crop of turnips. The seed should then be sown by drill; about seven or ten pounds of seed to the acre is sufficient; and it should be kept well hoed and hand-weeded twice a year, until the gorse has out-topped the grass and weeds. From the nature of the soil being more genial to this kind of plant, some covers will hold a fox in three years, while others will scarcely hide a rabbit in double that time; April is the best month for sowing the seed, which may be procured at any of the first rate seedsmen in town at two shillings per pound; and it may not perhaps be generally known, that nearly all the gorse seed sold in this country, is imported from France; some persons have recommended mixing broom with the gorse in equal quantities, but it has been found not to answer, as the broom comes to its growth some years before the gorse, and consequently requires cutting at an earlier period, which not being practicable, it perishes, leaving large patches either bare, or so thin and weak as to be of little use for the purpose intended. I have occasionally seen a fox-cover made by sowing the seed with a crop of oats, beans, or wheat, this practice may do very well where the soil is healthy and the plant indigenous, but in a stiff clay, like some of the Leicestershire country, it must be nourished and cultivated exclusively, or the labour and expense bestowed, will, in all probability, end in a failure and disappointment. If the land is wet, it should be well soughed through all the furrows, or the plants will perish every where during the first winter, excepting upon the tops of the lands when it is dry and sound. Some covers have succeeded to admiration, by first sowing the seeds in a nursery ground, and then setting out the plants at two years old, during the autumn; gorse is a plant which makes a prodigious shoot very late in the year, it consequently becomes settled and rooted in the soil before winter sets in, and the dry weather in the spring and summer does not materially injure it, as it would if planted out in March or April. When a furze cover is established, there is still almost as much labour and skill required to keep it constantly in perfection and sufficiently strong to hold a fox, as there was to produce it. To achieve this, care should be taken to cut about a fisth

each year, after it begins to get hollow and weak, until the whole has undergone the operation, when, after a couple of years holiday, you may recommence at No. one. In speaking of cutting, the system of furning is highly to be recommended for several reasons, in the first place the fagots will hardly pay for tying up, and in the next place the operation renders the ground perfectly clear from all weeds which are totally eradicated by the fire; not so the gorse, the roots of which extend too far into the ground, to be injured by the heat, moreover the ashes form a most excellent manure to the new shoots, and the long black stumps which should not be cut off until two years have expired, are a most excellent preventive against persons either riding or walking upon the young buds and destroying them. When the aid of flames is resorted to, the cover should be cut out in quarters, or the whole may be inadvertently set on fire at once, and the day chosen for the conflagration should be one on which the wind blows from a favourable point; it is also to be highly recommended to take the precaution of cutting round the part intended to be burnt, for the space of about four or five yards, to prevent the possibility of the flames extending to the hedges or the adjacent parts. Artificial covers are also occasionally made of previt and blackthorn, and even of laurels, but a severe winter is a terrible destroyer to the latter, the ravages of which two genial seasons will scarcely replace. Osier or withy beds as they are called in some counties, also form excellent covers, and are invariably favourite places of resort for foxes, partly on account of their principle food the field-mouse abounding there; but more especially because the high banks on which osier beds are formed, affording such dry lying even in the wettest weather. I recollect many years ago, when I was an "Oxford boy," seeing a good run from the osier bed at Deddington turnpike with the hounds of the late Duke of Beaufort ; the brook on the lower side of the cover was more than a bumper, and the pack had actually to swim over to draw this small island, flooded as it was, and which is scarcely half an acre, before the old gentleman made his exit; however he beat us after a sharp burst, by going to ground in Sir Thomas Mostyn's (now Mr. Drake's) country near the village of Adderbury.

Modern invention has in some places substituted covers made of dead wood, instead of planting or sowing. These are denominated "Stick covers, 99 66 Fagot covers,' or "Dead covers;" they may be found to answer occasionally in the total absence of real brushwood, until a regular gorse cover can be raised; but they are also highly objectionable on many accounts, in the first place no good wild fox will lie in them; and secondly, they are dreadfully distressing to hounds when drawing, on account of the thorns breaking oft

after they have punctured them, and in consequence, frequently causing an obstinate lameness; lastly they are awfully expensive, and at the best only last about three years. Where there are many old white thorn bushes (of twenty or thirty years growth) upon the side of some warm and sequestered bank, the boughs may be advantageously nicked down and the interstices filled up with strong stakes and dead wood; by this means a good cover of several acres may be at once formed, quite equal to any gorse cover, which will last for many years without renewing, and to which foxes will be found to take more kindly, than if the whole were composed of fagots and such rubbish. An artificial earth may also be made in one corner, but it will be found of but little avail for the purpose of rearing turned-down cubs in, unless there is a good of supply water close at hand; this is indispensable, as without it young foxes will inevitably wander away and be lost, and thus starved to death or destroyed. No game should be encouraged in a cover, which is rented or kept up solely as a fox-cover, for reasons too obvious to mention, and even rabbits, where they are allowed to get too great a head defeat the object for which they were at first introduced, by attracting every idle boy and cur dog within six miles of the place to hunt them. The more frequently large woodlands are ransacked the better, but small gorse covers or spineys should on no account be disturbed oftener than about once in every three weeks or a month, that is if the find is to be booked as a certainty. Beckford recommends the encouragement of gorse covers, as a great protection to foxes from poachers and foxcatchers; such might have been the case in the days of that great authority, but it is well known by every one conversant in that nefarious practice, that there is no place in the world where foxes can be more easily taken than from gorse covers, unless well watched and preserved by persons employed for the express purpose. In drawing small covers, it matters but little, whether you go up wind or the reverse into them; if the animal is at home, and a moderate share of pains taken, he is almost sure to be found, and two or three cracks with a whip in the adjoining field, and calling the hounds back with a loud voice, as a huntsman usually does when travelling along, will generally give sufficient warning for a fox to get upon his legs and prepare himself for a start, without the danger of being chopped. Where there is a large riding in a cover, the field had by all means be better collected to that point, as there will be less chance of the fox being headed back, than when each person is left to his own discre tion; the jealousy of getting a good start has been the chief cause of spoiling many a good run. I have occasionally seen a small cover

drawn by about four or five couples of hounds, the body of the pack being kept in reserve at some distance, and must confess, that although the motive was excellent, viz. that the fox should have every advantage in making his point away without being overpowered by numbers and chopped, it took away in no little degree from the true spirit of the thing. Colonel Cooke mentions in his "Observations on Hunting," the circumstance of Mr. Meynel's hounds waiting in the same field, while a few couples selected from the pack were running hard in an adjoining gorse, nor did they attempt to break from the whipper-in, until cheered to the cry by Jack Raven. ACTEON.

MY FIRST EQUESTRIAN TRIP IN LONDON.

BY SYLVANUS SWANQUILL.

DEAR N. S. M.

I must give you an account of my first appearance as a cockney equestrian. Being in Loudon for a short time, I the other day accepted an invitation from a friend to dine and "take a ride," which I was glad enough to accept, not having been in a saddle for three weeks or more. On arriving at my friend's house, the first thing we saw was a young fellow riding out of the yard on a great devil of a sixteen hand grey mare. That, I was informed, was my horse, and I was called upon to say how I liked him. Of course I was rather taken aback at this, and mildly suggested that if that was to be my mount, I had rather she didn't go out. But I was told the gentleman was only going for half an hour's ride, and would be back in ample time for my expedition; so of course I could say no more, being my "first appearance on these boards." We now went to dinner, and in the middle of it, the maid came in to say that one of the horses had broke the string," and begged one of the young gentlemen to come and set it to rights. Soon after this two of the youths fell to talking on horsemanship, evidently with a view to flabbergast me with their knowledge of equestrianism in all its branches. At last one of them asked the other where his horse was “born.”

I am quite aware that the absurdity of these matters will lead you to imagine that I am merely fabricating a tissue of nonsensicalities; but I assure you that every word of what I am now writing is strictly

true.

Dinner over, I was more anxious to be moving, and the horses were

accordingly ordered. There was one saddled for me and another in a gig, for two of my friends. On looking at the tackle of my tit, I found it to consist of a double bitted bridle without a curb, and a saddle of such a cut, that when mounted, your leg lay on the horses' bare shoulder. The stirrups were about big enough for a "sucking baby," and I resolutely refused to put my ten toes into such toy-shop trumpery. A bigger pair being hunted up, I at lost got mounted. Away we went, and at the end of the first hundred yards, my tit beginning to grow rampagious, I took a pull at his head; and at the first tug away came one side of the rein from the bit, round he swung, and slap he went into the mêlée of carriages at his best run-away pace. Of course it was of no use pulling at him, as that would have only made matters worse, by hauling him on one side into the first pair of wheels that we came nigh. By good luck we didn't run into any of the "webicles," and on arriving at his own stable my gentleman pulled up of his own accord. A new pair of reins were now procured; and I insisted on having a curb, which was also produced, with a remark that it would be quite sharp enough without the strap. Matters being thus adjusted, we now got a fair start. But, dear N. S. M., did you ever "go a riding" in the cockney style. This is the plan of it. As soon as you are mounted, off you set as hard as you can make the poor devils lay legs to ground for four or five miles. Then you pull up at a public-house, and in this case my friends were going to put up the horse and gig while they got something to drink inside. As I strongly objected to this, however, they consented to take their beverage at the door, and that done, up they got again, and away back as if the devil had 'em, calling out to me to 66 come on" down the hills, which they passed rather more quickly than the rest. After another race of four or five miles we found ourselves in London again; and as the expedition was undertaken on purpose to show me the country, you may fancy I was very much edified by the result. The only means I had of at all knowing where we were was by a manœuvre. As soon as I saw a good-natured-looking lad or girl within shouting distance, I sang out at the top of my voice to ask the name of the place. If they were pretty quick of intelligence, and not suspicious of my humming them, by the time I had got something less than a quarter of a mile past them, I received the desired information: and by this means I am enabled to state, that I have been at Brixton, Norwood, and Streatham; but what sort of places Brixton, Norwood, and Streatham are, is a matter totally beyond the knowledge of

Piazza Coffee House,

Aug. 7th, 1840.

Your's, faithfully,

SYLVANUS SWANQUILL.