you are

I liked with them. I never got bitten at all badly, but I have seen some very severe and dangerous bites received by persons who have incautiously handled them. In taking up ferrets, seize them quickly and surely by the neck. If you hesitate, and keep poking at them, you are sure to get bitten. It is just the same as dealing with a savage dog. If he sees that afraid of him he will snap at you. If you approach him boldly he will admit your superiority. Ferrets should be kept in a large hutch, divided into two compartments-one for sleeping in, and the other for feeding and exercise. It should be kept scrupulously clean and dry; and, as ferrets are very clean and tidy animals, this may be easily done. Cleanliness is the sure preventative against footrot, that plague of the ferret-keeper. Hay is often given to ferrets to lie in, but it is apt to make them unhealthy, and I prefer straw, or better still, soft pine wood shavings, the odour from which keeps away insects. Feed the ferrets with bread and milk, and now and then a little fresh meat, offal, &c. If from any cause they are low in condition, and ill, and you can procure a dead cat, give them that. It will fatten them up and restore them to health in a surprising manner. When the female is about to have young ones, separate her from the male, and on no account

disturb her by looking at her or touching her until the young ones can run about and eat meat, or she will kill them.

It is best to muzzle ferrets when they are used, as otherwise they may catch a rabbit in its burrow, and, after satisfying their hunger, curl themselves up and go to sleep. If such a thing does happen, a light charge of powder fired down the burrow may bring them out. If it does not, you can only set some one to watch the hole, and wait with patience for its coming out.

The cruel plan of muzzling them by sewing up the mouth should never be followed. Here are two methods perfectly efficacious and harmless. "Tie a piece of soft string round the neck of the ferret close to the head, and leave two rather long ends. Tie another piece round the under jaw, passing it under the tongue, and then around over the upper jaw, where tie it; also leaving long ends. The mouth being thus closed, tie all the ends together in one knot on the top of the head." Or, "Double a piece of string and tie a small loop, which place on the top of the head with the knot on the neck. Pass the ends of the string around the neck, and tie a second knot under the jaws; then pass over the nose, where make a third knot, and finally tie the ends through

the loop at the top of the head so as to make all secure."

I prefer the last mode of doing it, as being more simple than the other.

On fine September and October days, when the air is bracing and the day bright, an afternoon's rabbiting is productive of much fun. Where there are many burrows the nets will probably be used to aid the gun. There is great art in fixing a rabbit net across a burrow, so that bunny, when he pops out like a cannon ball from a gun, shall be caught in its folds, and not merely dash it aside. When he is in it he must be pounced upon at once, or he may struggle free.

Whether we take part in a rabbit battue in some well preserved woods, or are satisfied with an occasional shot at bunny as he goes louping over the gorse of a free common, he is sure to afford sport. What I like best is a lazy saunter with a gun along the hedgerows and the edges of the coppices, quietly stealing up within shot, or coming suddenly upon the rabbits around

corners.

I have often also watched for them at dusk, ensconsed behind a hedge or up a tree, waiting until they come out of their burrows to feed. The most artistic mode of shooting them then is with a pea rifle.

And, lastly, I have seen famous fun when the reaping machine has left only a small patch of corn standing in the centre of a field, in which the rabbits are gathered in numbers. Oh, the fun of chevying them with sticks and stones as they bolted out, and the roars of laughter when two fellows charged the same rabbit and came into collision with each other, or fell headlong on the grass!

XXIII.

A DAY'S PIKE FISHING IN NORFOLK

I HAD not handled a rod for over eighteen months, and the love of fishing, born in me, slumbered quietly, only breaking out occasionally when some piscatorial friend boasted of his exploits. I had literally had no leisure to pursue the angler's idle art, and long disuse had brought with it a quasi forgetfulness of its delights and allurements. But a few bracing days one February, an almost accidental overhauling of some pike tackle, and last, but not least, the sight of a brace of twenty-pound pike in the Norwich fish market, made me determine to have at least one day among the pike before the season closed. And a right pleasant day I had. Not a successful day as Norfolk fishing days go, but successful enough to satisfy one who had not fished for so long. Most of my papers have the