Over Dock-hill ridge, by "Skerraton so wild," Skay and Hayford. The hounds were actually racing ten abreast "like horses of the sun," and the tailing among them and the field acknowledged the pace (a few of the last hounds out of cover never having gained the body of the pack, and many of the field having pumped their nags most effectually in breasting the moor); the steeds of the welters, "though like good 'uns they all persevered," confessed to their cumbrous weight, and compelled them to sink the wind or see nothing of it, and the light 'uns were quite weight enough for the best blood at the close of the first twenty minutes. An occasional chirp from Nemesis or Ruby (a North-Warwickshire hound) as they dashed like demons over his line, was all the music they could spare us over Holme-moor; near the end of which he was viewed by "the man in black" straining to gain the cover, his back arched, his action high, and his hopes gone. "Tear him and eat him, lads;" and well you deserve him. Distance, nine miles; time, thirty-two minutes. A prettier find, a better run, and a more successful finish was never seen, nor I believe ever recorded. Long life and health to the master, the coverowner, and the king of fox-preservers.

In such charms as these let the victim of blue devils seek an antidote; believe me, they are a thousand times more efficacious than all the mesmeric mummery of a Martineau, and may laugh to scorn the homœopathic treatment of a Bell nomini.

PORTRAITS OF HER MAJESTY'S STAGHOUNDS.

ENGRAVED BY J. SCOTT, FROM A PAINTING BY R. B. DAVIS.

"The spectator," as the R. A. catalogues have it, "is supposed to be looking" from the Royal Kennels at Ascot, and, as nine spectators out of ten might, not feeling exactly quite at home in them. To be sure he has seen the inmates at work near Salt-hill, Maidenhead-thicket, and, above all, one day in their holiday season over the Vale of Aylesbury; lived, too, right through with them from start to take; and found Mr. Davis as polite in general as he is at present in particular. Still, picking out a hound from his fellows is at all times a task requiring some little discretion, but the more especially from her gracious Majesty's collection, where a word awry may be booked as little less than high treason. Even what is said must be well home to the purpose, or the visitor may fare like the Irish gentleman Nimrod speaks of, as going to look over a "swell" pack of fox-hounds in the neighbourhood of Leamington. Being in the off or summer months, and finding the stranger a well-conditioned, gentlemanly fellow, the master undertook the office of showman himself. First he pointed out this hound, then another, then a third as good in blood, shape and performance, until at length Paddy, who had long listened in silent admiration, fervidly exclaimed, "By my soul, how I'd like to see 'em trail on a hare!"

With the experience of this outbreak to guide him, our friend con

tents himself with a more ambiguous style of oracle: "Fine pack of hounds, Mr. Davis, a remarkably fine pack of hounds; and really look as well in the house as they do in the field. Prince been out with them lately? Her Majesty I suppose finds it a little too fast? How far do you make it from here to Slough ?"

"Why, upon my word, although-get down, sir; get back with you. Fine hound that, sir."

"So he is, indeed-here old fellow, here! What do you call him?"

"Runnymede, by Colonel Wyndham's Rubens out of Gipsy; one of our four-year-old hunters. A fine dog in form, and as good as he looks."

“And the dark-muzzled one there, has he distinguished himself also?"

"Cotemporary with the other in all points-pedigree, age, and excellence. Traveller, by Talisman out of Goneril. This is another of the same year and equally worthy of your attention: here Troilus, Troilus! Don't be alarmed, sir, he won't hurt you; only a little shy of strangers, that's all. He's one of our own rearing, too; by Tyrant out of Costly. The more than usually good-headed hound by his side is Truant, own brother to Traveller, the same litter and the same sort, arcades ambo. A couple of hounds that no kennel in England could beat. How say you to that, sir?"

The visitor of course, with his usual tact, being quite "agreeable" to it, is next directed to observe another yet of old Talisman's stock; the said Talisman appearing to be quite the Trojan of the pack. "That's him, the light-coloured hound half asleep there; Trueman, by Talisman out of Dairymaid, a veteran in the service, and as likely as not to be drafted by next season. If with him you take Dragsman, by Chider out of Dulcimer, also more on the what he has been than what he is, you have three picked couple of hounds from the pride and pattern kennel of the kingdom."

As Mr. Davis was kind enough to hint something of this in selecting half a dozen of "the gentlemen" as superior for their goodness and high breeding, we thought we could not return his courtesy in a more becoming manner than by making a group of them for "the house" we travelled for. Should these portraits, as we believe they must, meet with the approval of our subscribers, we intend to follow them up with a few more from "the ladies;" of course, again from the easel of Mr. R. B. Davis, an artist who in carrying the hound to canvas does it with a characteristic fidelity that none of his fellows can rival. "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined;" and it is an o'er true tale of how much genius generally delights and proportionately excels in those paths in which it was first developed. The highly-bred fox-hound is as great a hero to Mr. Davis as the farmer's boy was to Bloomfield, or the tragic muse to the Kembles: it is talent not apprenticed, but born and bred to its vocation.

According to the list published in October, her majesty's stag-hounds at present consist of fifty-one couple and a-half; forty-two couple of old, and nine and a-half of young hounds. We may, perhaps, avail ourselves more liberally of the contents of this interesting little annual when we have the honour to introduce the "softer sex.'

CASTS AND CHARACTERS ON TWEEDSIDE.

BY T. T. STODDART, ESQ.

(Author of the "Scottish Angler," &c., &c.)

A DAY'S SALMON FISHING AT TROWS.

The Makerston water is undeniably one of those parts of Tweed which, while fascinating the eye with fair and moving scenery, invites, withal, with its promise of stirring sport, the footsteps of the angling enthusiast. It is, indeed, admirably adapted from head to foot for the exercise of his solitary art; be he the whipper-in of parrs, the beguiler of trout, or the aspiring captor of the noble salmon itself. Now gliding over a bed of pebbles; now gambolling at rougher pace across a ridge of large stones, intermingled with patches of gravel; then narrowing itself up, so as to force its way betwixt two walls of rock, under which it circles in perilous eddies, or alternately foams onward with impetuous violence; and then, again, freed from its brief restraint, expanding into a wide tranquil pool; under all these, its successive changes, the glassy river presents to the brethren of the streams a choice of angling ground not often met with in the same limited extent of surface.

Accordant, too, with these rapid transformations of character in the water itself, are the banks which pertain to it. Commencing a short way above Makerston House, they bring in turns before the eye of the beholder combinations of wood, rock, and verdure; sweet, solemn, and bold; here, sloping gently upwards, crowned with forest clumps and grassy knolls; there, umbrageous and gloomy to the river's edge; now abrupt and precipitous, affording covert to the wily otter among numerous clefts and fissures; and, again, smoothed down almost to a level surface, daisied over, or else fringed with willows, privet, and alderwood.

Such, hastily sketched and unarranged, are the principal features of this portion of Tweedside scenery; but as they merit more extended remark, I shall take occasion further to allude to them, while endeavouring for the benefit of the angler to classify and describe the various casts or salmon throws which form the Makerston water. The uppermost of these-that adjoining to the Rutherford streamsis named "Willie's Bank." It commences at the termination of a huge crag or cliff, overshadowing the north side of the river, on quitting which it is accompanied downward by a steep, verdant slope, studded with large trees, and forming part of the Makerston park or pleasure grounds. Facing this slope, the south embankment of the river consists of a range of wooded rocks, based upon green sward just sufficient in breadth to allow the cautious angler, while proceeding over it, to heave out his fly.

Willie's bank-I mean the stream itself so termed-is a rapid piece of water, remarkable neither for depth nor breadth, and upon

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the whole but an indifferent salmon cast. The lower part of it, however, and indeed, in certain states of the river, its whole range, affords excellent trouting. This is owing chiefly to the nature of the bed or channel, which, although inlaid near the southern margin with sunken rocks, is, throughout its greater extent, composed of large stones and gravel, nicely adjusted and thrown together, so as to form both shelter and feeding-ground for river-trout. Below Willie's Bank, or rather forming a portion of it, is a small break of water, known by the singular name of "Hirple Nelly." There, in spring, salmon are oftener taken than in the upper part of the cast, but these for the most part are "kelts," or exhausted fish.

Leaving it, we come upon a more favourite piece of angling-ground, although by no means the prime and pride of the water. I allude to

the "Orchard Head," a stream situated immediately below Makerston House. After rattling over a headway of loose stones, the main current is here narrowed up to the width of a few yards, betwixt two lines of rock; quitting which, it disgorges itself into a broad pool of considerable depth, known to anglers by the name of the "Dark Shore." The bank on the south side of Tweed is now for a short space more open, that on the north more abrupt and rugged; its trees, to boot, mingled up with a greater profusion of shrubs and brushwood. On approaching, however, the Clippers, the character of the scenery again undergoes a transformation: a new ridge of rocks, crested, like the former one, with firs, but more bold and precipitous-strewn, moreover, underneath with great blocks of stone, its crevices and projections verdured over with mosses and creepers-occupies, suddenly, the first-mentioned bank; while the other having gradually declined in height, is assuming the appearance of a mere mound or terrace, bearing on its summit an avenue of tall trees, and adown its scarp or slope, scattered to the river's edge, with saplings and undergrowth.

The Trows Clippers, as they ought properly to be called, in order to avoid confounding them with the Clippers of Rutherford, and of other parts of the Tweed, consist of at least two slits or fissures, through which the water, while struggling over an extended bed of rocks, becomes mainly directed. These narrow ducts, scooped out and fashioned by the constant motion of the stream during the lapse of centuries, are the temporary depositaries of large quantities of sand and gravel, which every successive flood shifts or displaces. Massive stones also, and projections of rock, obstruct, here and there, the free passage of the water through its confined courses, and though concealed from the eye, may be detected, as present, by the foam, eddying, and turmoil, they give rise to. Below these it is, as well as under the ledges and in the hollows of the main rock itself, that the salmon find shelter; here, especially during the September and October months, they are taken in considerable numbers. In spring, too, not unfrequently a clean fish may be tempted forth from its hiding-place, and, if strongly hooked with trustworthy tackle, will seldom fail to afford lively and stirring sport.

Leaving the Clippers, North and South, as they are termed by way of distinction, we come upon the Laird's cast, at the upper end of which the ridge of rocks already described has its boundary, and is

succeeded, first, by a short continuation of the fir-wood cresting its heights, and latterly, by an open extent of arable ground, sloping upwards to the county road. The Laird's cast possesses all the qualifications of a good salmon-stream; and, indeed, for its size, is surpassed by few in the Makerston range. On its north side, the trouting also is excellent. A piece of feeding-ground lying at its head, a short way below where the Clippers unite, the deep gully behind it, and two or three snatches of the stream lower down, have occasionally done more to swell the contents of my creel, then the toiling over a couple of miles of other water. Still, although I give them this praise, I mean not to compare them in the same proportions to the great bulk of Tweed angling-ground; all asserted by me is, that out of the places alluded to, I have more than once made amends for rather indifferent sport, and experienced, what every habitual angler must frequently have found to be the case, that, while in the other parts of a river the trout seem dull, appeased, and inactive, in one select spot, though from what cause it is needless here to inquire, they are astir, thoroughly appetized, and easily humoured. Nor does my remark hold good merely of the Laird's cast, but, in common with it, of the succeeding portion of Tweed known by the name of the Elshie stream.

This range of water, as far as regards the trouting it affords, is almost unequalled in the south of Scotland. I know of none, at least, in the neighbourhood of Kelso, that may, with any chance of success, be set in competition with it. It is one of those happily formed and endowed spots which abound with every requisite for the feeding, shelter, and spawning of trout; while, at the same time, it affords facility of access to the wader, and by the perpetual, yet gentle movement of its current, the soft bland rippling that ever marks its surface, aids in disguising the true nature of his lure, and giving to it, in the eyes of the hungry watcher underneath, the seeming properties of motion and vitality. As a salmon-cast the Elshie stream merits some passing notice. On an average it excels most of the casts on the Makerston water, being inferior to none above it, and at certain seasons and heights of the river, surpassing those which have a higher reputation. The little rock it contains is distributed along the northern bank, and under the shadow of some tall poplars, willows, and other trees, which continue, passing over a forest of green privet, to skirt that quarter of Tweed, in close alliance with the avenue formerly mentioned.

Below the Elshie stream, and commencing where the river takes a slight bend or turn, lies the Shot pool-a still piece of water, suited more for working over with the seine, or long drag, than for angling. Its depth on the south side is considerable, and it is there walled in with a new range of rocks, which hedged over with sloes, hawthorn, and several of the larger sorts of trees, starts up at the lower end of the open space already alluded to. Opposite this facing of natural masonry it is that the fisherman, Rob of Trows, is accustomed during certain states of the river to ply his nets. The most successful takes of fish are generally met with here in the grilse season; in August or the early part of September, and at night after a flood or small spate. If I recollect rightly, two, if not three of thesc