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and the following not placed:-Mr. S. Hawke's Miss Harrison, Mr. Lane Fox's The Lamb, Mr. Pedley's Besborough, and Major Yarburgh's Snowball. 7 to 2 against Canezou. Won by a length.

At Doncaster, ridden by F. Butler, she ran second to Surplice for the St. Leger, as already detailed.

At the same meeting, ridden by F. Butler, she won the Park Hill Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft.; St. Leger Course (41 subs); beating Mr. G. S. Foljambe's Queen of the May (2), and Mr. Quin's Attraction. 4 to 1 on Canezou. Won easily by several lengths.

At the same meeting she walked over for a Sweepstakes of 200 sovs. each, h. ft.; St. Leger Course (7 subs.); Major Yarburgh's Snowball saving her stake.

At Newmarket Second October Meeting she received 75 sovs. from Lord Exeter's Gardenia in a Match for 200, h. ft.; 8st. 71b. each; T. M. M.

SUMMARY OF CANEZOU'S PERFORMANCES.

In 1848 she started seven times and won six times; she also received in a match.

The Thousand Guineas Stakes, at Newmarket, value

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£

1,950

100

500

1,430

930

500

75

£5,485

Canezou's only engagement at present is in a four-year-old stake at Doncaster, which she must win if well-an understanding on which we expect to see her do great things before then.

The

Being disappointed in our promised portrait of the Leger winner, we engaged Mr. Hall to illustrate the finish for this memorable event—a scene which we think he has "put on" with singular success. set-to has the rare merit of looking like a race, as well as embodying faithful portraits of those engaged in it. Of Harry Hall's race-horses we have often had occasion to speak in terms of well-earned approval, and we may here make especial mention of his jockeys. We have seldom seen anything more characteristic than the resolute, but still elegant, attitude of Frank Butler. Who but will recognise the manner and the man, as it comes to a near thing, sitting so well back on his horse, and lifting him at every stride, with a fearful effect, from hand and heel, as he feels that mere "threatening" won't serve them? Flatman's figure, if not so inviting when at work, is equally after the originalquite as earnest and telling in action as his accomplished opponent, Nat in no way qualifies his punishment with that grace in administering it that Butler displays.

We hope Mr. Hall will not be spoilt by the praise we have felt it his due and our duty to give him, but continue a close study to that art in which he can lack no encouragement while he shows such ability.

TWO YEARS IN THE FAR WEST.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO," &c., &c.

No. IV.

Diminution of Irish Game-A Sportsman of the old school-His costume, flies, and fishing-book-Extirpation of Trouts-Curious facts-Irish Pikes-Anecdote; a wopper-Grouse, Red Deer, and Rabbits-Anecdotes.

While in England and Scotland there is an outcry against the increasing quantity of game, in Ireland its diminution for a century has been steadily progressive. To talk of grouse shooting in the Emerald Isle is a fallacy; and one speaks of that which has been. Red deer are all but extinct. Lakes and rivers, which formerly were exuberant in trout, are now in undisputed possession of that nefarious and, in our opinion, inedible fish, the pike. Woodcocks are annually reduced by the thousand; snipes bear scarcely a proportion, to what they were in number fifty years back, of one to a hundred; the bittern is never known to boom; and the landrail—and many a score we shot in boyhood, of an evening, over an asthmatic pointer, and with a Spanish-barrelled gun of our grandfather's, which, on a general average, gave one fire to two snaps-is now heard "few and far between. In sporting consideration, Ireland has been rubbed from the map of nations; and a country once celebrated for its manly field sports-its deer-stalking-its fox-hunting-its angling, and its shooting-will not now repay the outlay of a game certificate, or the maintenance of a setter.

Old people are given sadly to romance, and old sportsmen are particularly so; and we would estimate reports touching the past with caution, were not our earlier recollections corroborative of the statements of our grandfather. We can remember well the old gentleman taking the field, and great was the ceremonious preparation for the As Hamlet says

same.

"Methinks I see him now";

and his outer man and his accoutrements are vividly "in our mind's His tight corduroys met leather continuations at the knee. His velveteen jacket was greatly the worse of wear, and provided with numerous and voluminous pockets. As the sword of Hudibras had a page in shape of dagger, so had my honoured grandsire's jerkin a confederate garment in form of waistcoat. It, too, like a double-banked frigate, had its double tier of conveniences. Some of these pockets held flints-others a shot-charger, with No. 1, in case the Lord should deliver into his hands a straggling wild duck; and to these were added a turn-screw and a pricker; and there was a

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piece of chamois leather to wipe the gold pan, when soiled by a discharge or two. Across one shoulder was a leathern repository for shot, like a couple of eel-skins united-one filled with No. 5, the other with No. 7. A huge transparent powder-horn, edged with brass straps, and suspended by a green cord such as one sees occasionally attached to the bell of a country inn, carried the villanous preparation of saltpetre. Its capability would meet a week's demand from a Highland grouse shooter; but my grandfather would not stir until his travelling magazine, like his snuff box, was filled with their respective powders to the top. There was another implement also, and that, too, was heavily charged-namely, a whiskey flask, that held an honest pint of unadulterated alcohol. A dog-whip; a whistle, tied to his button-hole; a couple of puny pointers, in excellent condition as far as flesh went, but sorely distressed for want of wind; an aid-de-camp, with a net-work conveniency that would encase a lamb wholesale, but purporting to be a means of transport for all four-legged or feathered animals his master might assassinate -these completed the old gentleman's sporting turn-out; and as Le Sage says, "voilà mon oncle," there you have my grandfather to a T.

So much for his shooting; and yet, with this antediluvian collection of field artillery and stores, the fellow with the net usually came home well loaded. I verily believe that the old gentleman, for one shot I could command now, had his dozen snaps, misses, and now and then his hit. Poor man! he died the year percussion was clumsily introduced; and I believe the innovation of copper caps embittered his last hours. An agate flint, in his opinion, had topped human invention; and he considered it iniquitous to tempt Providence with any explosive experiments beyond what had been already mercifully vouchsafed. He angled-aye, and caught more trout than I ever did. His rod was a two-pieced spliced one; and, by the way, when well fabricated, your rod united by simple splicing is far from being a bad one. His line was of home-made construction, twined together by the agency of three goose quills. His flies were tied upon triple horse-hair; and a casting-line that we still preserve, and intend, D.V., to bequeath to the British Museum, commenced with nine hairs, and gently terminated in three. He believed religiously that there were in existence no flies above five or six; and we hold in our possession the old gentleman's fishing-book and its once highly-valued contents. The fly depository was a sixpenny song-book, covered with coarse sheep-skin, and secured with a piece of red tape. Its lyrical contents were not remarkable for correct poetry, and, indeed, were a little latitudinarian in expression. Inserted in the leaves, the ghosts of some two dozen insects were hooked in. We say insects; for, in size, they approximated rather to the dimensions of young bees than the ephemera that flutter on the surface of a stream. They were lumps of wool, whose dye was long since extinct; all presenting a dirty white, or sickly yellow tint, and the hackles equally as colourless. How any trout, from the size and formation of the lot, could have ever been seduced into making a fatal mistake appeared incomprehensible. But certain it is that the old gentleman did manage matters so that he rarely returned from lake or river with an empty pannier.

We remember in our own time, and in the short space of ten years, the perfect extirpation of trout from two waters in the county of Mayo; and in others the numbers are so diminished as to have become now purely nominal. One lough was surrounded by moss and bog, and might be half a mile in circuit. Its trouts were all gilleroos; and you would rarely raise a fish under a pound weight, and many of them reached to five. I have caught a stone weight of a summer evening; but now, were Anagh drained, pike, perch, and eels would be found its only occupants. Another water, called Lakeland, was altogether different; it was rocky bottomed and reeded at the banks. The trouts there seldom reached half a pound; but they were lively and well shaped; and often have I had three at the same time upon my casting-line. It was the merriest water, barring some of the tributaries to the Tweed, I ever angled in; and many a basket I have filled there in two hours, when the sky and wind were favourable. I am - told that there, too, trouts are no longer seen, and that pikes of enormous size are in full possession of the water.

There is, in the immediate vicinity of both these depopulated lakes, another lough that is interesting to a trout fisher; inasmuch as it is most tenanted by fish of immense size, which will never be cajoled by the cunningly constructed fly, and can withstand all bait temptation. The lough lies under a bluff hill; and, as the country people say, its depth of water is profound. The Irish peasant is imaginative, and his statements must be received cum grano salis; but the herdsman on Carramore will tell you that, on a warm summer evening, he has seen these huge trouts rolling along the surface "like water dogs." No art, however, will manage to insinuate a hook: flies, baits, nightlines-all have been tried and found wanting. I never essayed the forlorn hope myself; but I have been assured by others that they tried frequently, varied their means of mischief, and yet never could succeed. Now, that these misanthropic fish do exist in Carramore cannot be doubted. Its waters debouch upon a mill; and, at seasons, the net placed at the tail-race to catch eels in their annual migrations frequently enclose a ten-pound trout. There is, in this Carramore case, an anomalous distinction. In Lough Corrib and in the Shannon, trouts of equal and superior size occasionally rise freely; but in Carramore the piscatorial charmer can throw no spell over the finny community, "charm he never so wisely."

The size to which, in the great inland waters of Ireland, pikes will attain, would in England be much doubted. The pride of an English pond may probably turn the scale at ten pounds; while an Irish herds-boy will bring one of fifteen, five-and-twenty--nay, five-andthirty pounds to his master, or to the market. It is on record that, at Portumna, a pike weighing seventy pounds was taken; and, on Lough Corrib, many a one on the right side of twenty is every year secured.

In the pike's rapacity, no one is an unbeliever. At all and every thing he has a shy; and frog, mouse, or duckling are equally acceptable. In some of the western waters, the duck casualties are extensive; and they will tell you that a whole brood, one after another, have been annihilated by this river pirate. Proof was not wanted ; for conclusive evidence was found in the caitiff's maw.

I shall narrate an anecdote of pike rapacity, which will be considered as apocryphal, but which I conscientiously declare was told to me, and tollidem verbis. I dinned with a Connaught gentleman of large estate, upon a Friday; and a better landlord or better Catholic is not within leagues around him. It was a Lent day, and ours was, consequently, a fish dinner. To a fair supply from Galway, of turbot and whitings, a pike of some eight pounds weight was superadded; and, as it turned out, it had been taken the night preceding by a herds-boy, with a night line.

"He's a wonderful devil for catching them," said the host. "Since one of them pulled him into the river when he was a boy, he's after them day and night."

"Pulled him into the river?"

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'Aye; he was washing his feet, and it was well he was not drowned."

I burst into a roar of laughter, and soon perceived that my host was not quite pleased with my incredulity.

"I would rather encounter a bull-dog than a pike," he remarked. "And I would much rather buckle with a pike than a bull-dog," was the reply.

"I could tell you a story, but I suppose you would only laugh at it and me."

"Let us have the story, at all chances."

"Have you ever seen the black-hags (cormorants of a lesser size) that are always fishing on the river of Minola?" "To be sure I have," I replied.

"Well, last autumn little Morteeine"

"The young gentleman half drowned by the pike?" I enquired. "The same. Well, he set night-lines; and, faith, in the morning he found one of them had a wopper on it. We weighed it. How many pounds, John?" The appeal was to the butler.

"It was three-and-twenty pound, good weight; and divil a better fish ever went into the kettle, as the cook said."

"Go on," I said, smiling.

"I know you'll laugh; but it's true for all that. Morteeine beg (little Martin) brings it home upon his shoulder in a cleave, and flings it on the floor, besides the potatoes that had been boiled for breakfast. The wind was strong upon the door, and so it was closed, of course. Well, the herd's family drew their stools, and began to help themselves from the skibt, when, by the Lord! they heard a fluttering noise from the corner where the pike was stretched; and out of his mouth had come a black-hag two pound weight."

"Dead?"

"No more dead than you are.

It took the whole family five

minutes to poke him from under the bed, and a cleave of turf afterwards to knock him on the head."

"Se nonè vero, è ben trovato," I replied.

"Damn it, man, speak English or Irish."

"I only mean, my dear friend, to say that the story is a good one."

*A turf basket.

A flat basket, into which potatoes are emptied after being boiled.

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