place, I was induced to make Morlaix my head quarters, and from what I see I do not perceive I could have made a better choice, as far as shooting and comfort are combined. There are, indeed, one or two other places where game is nearer at hand; but the living in them is so perfectly wretched that a few more partridges or cocks would hardly make amends for it. There are also towns where there is more gaiety going on; but when a man has been out hard shooting all day, he is in no very great humour to go to a ball. Óne advantage in this part of the country is its cheapness; most other parts of France being nearly as expensive as England. I have got one of the best furnished lodgings in the town for a single man for five shillings a week, including extras. Wood for firing is cheap as dirt, and my dinner and breakfast at the Hotel du Paris costs (including a very good bottle of second-growth Bordeaux) half a crown a day. With a fair wind it is about sixteen hours' sail from Plymouth; and being on the high road from Paris to Brest, there are public carriages, such as they are, daily.

What makes this part of Brittany so desirable a quarter for one who is fond of shooting, and yet a stranger and sojourner in the land, is, that there is not only much more game to be found, but at the same time there are fewer obstacles

thrown in one's way of pursuing it. The licence, or porte d'armes as it is called, only costs fifteen francs, and though it is hardly ever asked for, it is better always to be provided for the worst. A friend of mine, now resident twelve miles off, at a pretty town called St. Pal de Lion, and who never misses a day without taking his gun, has only been

pulled up for trespassing once, and that by a man notoriously litigious among his own countrymen: even here he might have got off for an apology, which, John Bull-like, he did not consent to. The penalty for not having a licence is the forfeiture of the offending instrument, the gun; but provided a gun is given up, it does not matter whether it is the same. Thus a rusty double barrel of French workmanship, costing forty francs, is considered a fair substitute for a double gun of Joe Manton's.

Shooting begins on this side the water much about the same time as it does in England. The game consists of the red-legged and common partridge; hares in abundance, and much larger than ours (N. B. they require plenty of, and very straight shot), and a wonderful number of woodcocks. In the winter, down the rivers in hard weather, there is a fair sprinkling of wild fowl. The red-legged partridge is found chiefly toward a district of which Carpay is the principal town; and a good shot, in the early part of the season, may kill, with good dogs for the country, fifteen brace a day or more. Woodcocks are to be found every where, but in greater plenty in the vicinity of St. Egonec, about five leagues on the route to Brest. In those coverts one will meet (if the season is good) forty or fifty cocks a day. Parties are frequently made by all the crack sportsmen of this place to shoot them for a day or two, and one is sure to return well loaded with game.

This country is the easiest country for cock-shooting, and the most fatiguing for partridge-shooting, I ever was in it is up and down the steepest hills, which, to any

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but a Welshman, would appear mountains. In the early part of the season they take to the buck wheat, where no one dare follow, or the furze brakes, called landes. A great deal of the country here is laid down for furze; and the first time I followed a covey in a large field of this sort, I could not help thinking of Gulliver among the wheat in Brobdignag. The furze was "literally nine or ten feet, with broom feathering above all. The birds lie in this kind of covert like stones; and as the French furze, though so much higher, is much less bushy than ours, it is to be encountered. The highly-bred and well-broken pointer from Norfolk or Suffolk would be lost in such a country; a good setter, that will hunt covert, and is not afraid of thorns, is the best dog to have; and they should never be without a bell round their neck. A dog for this country should also be a good retriever; for nothing is more difficult to mark down than a killed bird in such coverts as I have been describing. Leicestershire is called the Paradise of foxhunters; and the parts of this country which I have already seen, may be well termed the Paradise of the cock-shooter: valleys low, and sheltered with green meadows, with little purling brooks, always holding a few snipes along the bottom, and the sides clothed with low underwood, with nothing to hide the cocks as they rise. These valleys are narrow, the hills that form their sides comparatively low, and extending for miles and miles. I shot from eight till five yesterday, and I never was out of these kind of valleys except once, when we beat a furze field for a covey of birds. The woodcocks were never known to be so scarce

as they are this season, and they are almost all gone; and yet with only two guns we bagged five couple and two bitterns, which I was lucky enough to fall in with. These last we found in a low, swampy meadow: they fly very slow, and present a capital mark, while they take much less shot than a partridge.

Some of the French are good shots, but they will not fag with an Englishman-notwithstanding that they go out with most killing intentions. For instance, in France a thrush or blackbird is accounted a "piece du gibier," and the sweet songsters are massacred even on the ground, wherever they can get a shot at one. Though by no means good fags, a French chasseur will be in the field before daylight. This custom is easier to them, as they will go to bed before an Englishman will have got through his first pint of claret. A very pretty French lady (lately married at Roscoff) was complaining to me last week of her husband's passion for the chasse leading him out at most unchristian hours: I could have told her it was so with our Nimrods a century or so ago

hours of the best part of the day are lost. The English who shoot here start two hours later, and at the end of the day have beat over twice as much ground.

The favorite sort of sporting in vogue is the chasse aux chiens courants for fox and hare. The chasseur-his lower extremities well defended by leather trow sers-beats down the furze hedges where the hares generally lie, and where puss affords such a fair shot on being started. In the mean time the huntsman, with four or five couple of hounds, beats up and down the field, and as the fox or hare attempts to escape, volleys of shot are poured at the unfortunate animal from all quarters. The hounds they use are most extraordinary-looking beasts: their heads and bodies are those of

a large stag-hound, "with "with ears that sweep away the morning dew ;" and bellies also for their legs are those of a turnspit, short and bandy to a degree; they are lower than any beagle I ever saw; their noses are very good, and as the game is shot, they are not wanted to catch any thing. If they do get hold of a hare by accident, it is instantly devoured with vast relish.

When a man goes out shooting in the company of a Frenchman, he should always make his will the night before, as the man of the country always carries his gun full cocked, beats the bushes with the muzzle towards you, and should anything get up, you may have both barrels fired close to your head, by your rear rank man as a matter of course. The accidents that happen are so common, that no one seems to trouble his head about the matter. To gain the character

of a staunch sportsman in this part of the world, the true way is, to keep a bob-tailed pointer as fat as a pig, shoot all Sunday, and wear buttons with sporting subjects engraved upon them on your coat. A man is then called a "Sacré matin pour la chasse."

We have lately been worried by a most pestilent set of fellows called Missionaries--a good deal of the trickery of our Methodists-only, happily for us, our hypocrites are not made one and parcel of the state. They have revived miracles of all kinds and sorts; and as one relates -As two shooters were returning home in the early part of the season, one fell suddenly on his knees, and began to pray most devoutly. This roused the curiosity of his companion. The saint declared he saw the Crucifixion in the middle of the road. The sinner, thinking he was mad, fired right and left in the direction of the supposed image. The smoke was not out of his gun, when the earth opened, and his head was only left above ground. Half the night was spent in arduous attempts to dig him out, in vain-three masses (well paid for of course) were at last said for his soul, and the earth of its own accord opened to let out the once blasphemer-now a zealous Jesuit and Missionary. I mention this as it has not found its way into the London papers, and also that it is most firmly believed by all the women and old men in Brittany.

1 find I have materials for another letter on the sports of this country-which you will in due time receive.

In the mean time believe me yours, &c.

WILL WIMBLE.

Your Letter on the above subject has just met my eye; and not exactly agreeing in opinion with you, I take the liberty to make some observations on it. And permit me to say, that a man setting himself up as a judge of a contest that he has not seen-giving an opinion on conditions that he does not know-and then asking the world to admit him to be an impartial person, because he has known some of the best wrestlers, and, after all, offering to bet "a cool fifty" that in another contest "Cornubia would bear away the palm," is, I think, asking for a little more indulgence than the public will grant.

In the first place say you, "Polkinhorn and his opponent did not meet on equal terms;" in respect of kicking you seem to imply. Why did they not? The old Cornish play, certainly, is without shoes. The old scientific Devonshire play is with shoes and single stockings, and at half minute time between foils. The line was as fairly drawn between them as possible: Cann was to wear a shoe, and Polkinhorn to pad his legs as much as he pleased; and, if I recollect rightly,

skin, or something of that kind, next stockings, then gaiters, and over all a pair of trowsers; and, if he found during the contest this was not enough, he could at any time have put on more: and, instead

of the half minute time, he was allowed a minute; and a very long minute he generally took, being almost invariably called to time by his opponent.

Next: "That Polkinhorn threw Cann at Devonport according to the articles agreed on, is, I believe, acknowledged by all parties," I suppose you must mean Cornishmen. If I were asked my opinion, I should say, that," according to the articles," there was but one fair back-fall thrown, which was at the second meeting, and in which Polkinhorn was laid as straight and as flat on his back as ever a man was put in his coffin, and with every inch of Cann's body and limbs on him. And since the conditions of this match have so often been alluded to, but have never been before the public, I will here state them :

Firstly, The Stakes to be deposited in the hands of one.

1

Secondly, They shall be considered won by the party to whom the best of three fair back falls be awarded by the triers; but if either party shall strike his opponent with his fist, and the triers shall consider it wilfully done; or if either party shall decline the contest before the triers are unanimous as to the winner, the stakes shall be forfeited to the other.

Thirdly, After every foil each man shall come to the scratch in one minute, and within fifteen minutes after a fall.

Fourthly, That neither party shall be entitled to the fall, if in

before his opponent.

Fifthly, That neither party shall be restricted from kicking, but that each shall be at liberty to guard his legs with what padding he pleases.

Sixthly, That two triers shall be nominated by each party, who are to decide on the falls; and in case they are not unanimous as to either of the falls, the men shall continue to play until they are so.

The last article seems at first sight to have been improperly drawn, as it could not insure a majority; but when it is remembered that neither party would concede to the other the power of appointing a majority of triers, and that an indifferent stranger could not be found, it unavoidably called forth the latter part of the articlethat the men should play until the tricrs and the public were unanimous.

But the result of the contest rested on the observance of the fourth article. I believe, wheresoever wrestling is practised, it is necessary that a man should cast his opponent to the ground before he come to the ground himself; that is, that at the moment of coming in contact with the ground, the man claiming the fall shall be uppermost; and upon this principle if Cann and Polkinhorn were to play twelve hours Cann would be perfectly safe. Polkiahorn has no means of throwing him. During the whole contest he never but once moved a leg to make an effort, not even the usual hug, but stood wholly on the defensive; and when his opponent turned in his back to lock or hip him he would merely grasp his arms around him, and fall away to the ground, coming down first, and invariably having his legs and thighs under.

With respect to the Devonians complaining of the superior weight of Polkinhorn, the reverse is the case; they consider Cann heavy enough to meet any man alive, and although not one of their strongest

men, yet possessing more science, action, and strength united than any other man. Polkinhorn is certainly a much heavier man, but from his real corpulence would be much better if he could dispossess himself of two or three stone. The truth is, Polkinhorn is a strong man, but no wrestler; he has no action, or as we say in Devonshire no play; or at any rate he never ventured any in presence of his opponent. But, Sir, since you have so different an opinion of him, I will put down "a cool fifty” against you, if you will prevail upon him to meet Cann again on the same terms, in any indifferent county, at any time this coming

summer.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A DEVONIAN.

ON COURSING RULES.
SIR,

NOT having been at College, I

know no more of Greek than to understand that the signature of your correspondent in the February Number (page 239 to 244) is in Greek characters; and I hope not to offend, if, in the observations I am about to make, I designate him THE GRECIAN, as I beg to assure him that it is entirely for the sake of brevity.

I perfectly agree with him in the absolute necessity of some rules being agreed upon as a standard, or principle, upon which courses should be decided; and in laying down those rules, that the dog effecting the most towards killing the hare is the ground upon which our cogitations should be founded : but in coursing there are so many fortuitous circumstances so frequently occurring, and in such a variety of shapes, that I very much