excessive vice. This must have been inculcated by ill-usage, for he afterwards became as docile as possible. Being on terms of intimate acquaintance with his owner, the late Mr. Weatherley, I had frequent opportunities of seeing the horse, and often went into his box alone, without any apprehension of his attempting to become violent. Stallions are very susceptbile, and easily irritated, and when anything occurs to ruffle their tempers, unless they are soothed and judiciously treated, are prone to resentment. Their memories too are especially retentive, and the quietest may be roused to violence. I experienced an instance of this with a thorough-bred horse, named Alfred, which I rode as a hunter several years. The boy was dressing him one morning after exercise, and required to have his head turned round in the box for that purpose; but from some cause the horse did not choose to stand in that position, and turned up to the manger several times, although the boy as often led him round by his topping. Going into the box at the moment, and witnessing the insubordination of the horse, I gave him a smart blow on the quarters with a stick I had in my hand. Alfred was not disposed to brook such an indignity, and setting to kick violently, the boy and I were compelled to retire precipitately, and as I closed the door he rushed open-mouthed at me. horse, by harsh treatment, would doubtless have become incorrigibly viscious from that moment; the seeds of rebellion had been sown, and would speedily have grown to maturity. My belief was, that in the first instance the boy had offended him by some rough treatment about his head, although he denied it; and as he was in the box with the horse by himself till I entered it, I had no positive means of confuting his assertion. In order to allow the horse to become pacified, the door of his box was kept closed till the evening, when I entered with a feed of corn; he was reconciled, and as tractable as he was before the little affray occurred. In this instance I was in error for having struck the horse, but it would have been still more culpable to have continued any system of irritation, This A friend of mine who kept a few race-horses, which he trained at home, principally under his own directions, had a mare that was invariably restive when about to start up a gallop, and still worse when taken to the post for a race; plunging violently, and in two or three instances throwing her jockey. At other times she was particularly docile and good-tempered. The cause of this was eventually detected. The young rascal who had the care of her made a practice of carrying a pin, with which he pricked her on the top of her withers just before starting to gallop, and thus excited her to this abominable propensity. In this instance, the boy received what he amply deserved-a most wholesome thrashing; and that had the effect of reconciling the mare. Without upholding a system of chastising stable-boys, yet, whenever their horses exhibit symptoms of vice, the most salutary method of checking it will generally be experienced by punishing the individuals who look after them. They are the guilty parties, not the horses. An instance of a mare viciously addicted to biting, being cured of the habit by an accident, occurred in my stable a short time since. Her former owner, I must observe, had very foolishly taught her to do this by teazing her, and she had contracted the habit to such an extent, that whenever any person went into her box, unless her head was tied up, she would assuredly run at him. Knowing that beating her, or adopting any harsh measures would have only a prejudicial effect, I strictly forbade it, and by putting the muzzle on when she was being dressed, any serious consequences were avoided. The way she cured herself was singular. She had been out to exercise, and the boy was washing her legs and feet, her head being racked up, and the muzzle taken off to allow her to eat a little hay. She turned her head suddenly, with the intention of seizing the boy, by which act she caught the stirrup-iron in her mouth, and, as I have before observed, being racked-up, she was fixed as firmly as if she had been in the stocks; she plunged violently, and in doing so her hind-quarters slipped, and she fell side-ways, her head still held fast by the rack-chain. Hearing the scuffle, I ran to ascertain the cause; when, loosing the girths, she was released from her perilous position, as she was almost strangled; but she never attempted to bite afterwards. The ordinary means adopted by sportsmen and others connected with horses, and which have been for ages more or less successfully the means of subjugating them, are totally eclipsed by the performances of Mr. Rarey. Whatever scepticism may exist as to the permanency of his treatment with horses confirmed in vice, very great and important results are most unquestionably manifest in the facility with which he is enabled to reduce to quiet submission wild, unhandled, unbroken colts. If that were the only point gained, the fee for his instruction is capital well invested by all breeders, farmers, and others concerned with young horses. Those who ride and drive for health and amusement, although their wealth may enable them to purchase horses perfectly tractable, cannot fail to enhance their pleasures by the confidence which a knowledge of Mr. Rarey's art must establish. It is by no means surprising that Mr. Rarey should have to contend against the opinions of many jealous persons, especially those who in their own estimation consider themselves perfect masters of the equestrian art. When a man expresses a doubt on such a subject without assigning a reason why, his opinion becomes as a cypher. Where a young horse has been perfectly broken by the ordinary means, he continues tractable so long as he is ridden by or used by competent persons. In unskilled hands he may become refractory, and yet be again reclaimed ; and there is no reason to suppose that horses treated under Mr. Rarey's system should not be influenced by the same principles. Supposing, for example, that Cruiser should return to his evil ways, the same treatment that Mr. Rarey adopted to reduce him to tranquil subjection will have the same effect again. This argument may be carried still further with this question: "What would induce Cruiser to return to his evil ways?" The same treatment that implanted the seeds of rebellion in the first instance. Peradventure they might have been to a certain extent inherent, as effected by the naturally nervous irritability of the brain; if so, they were fostered, not checked, in their early development. To farmers who breed horses the system is invaluable in various ways. In the first place, the tender mercies of the country colt-breaker, often the greatest ruffian in existence, may to a great extent, if not entirely, be dispensed with by those who are initiated in the art. When, again, we consider the custom adopted by a vast number of persons who breed horses, Mr. Rarey's system cannot fail to be used by them to advantage. The custom I refer to is this: as soon as their foals are weaned, they are turned adrift as it were; never handled, never touched, never accustomed to the companionship of man till the time arrives when they are required to be broken. If an accident occurs, which is of frequent occurrence, very great difficulty is experienced in approaching these animals to apply remedies, and the confusion occasioned very commonly acts as antidotes to those remedies. That the custom alluded to, of permitting young horses thus to run wild-of neglecting the important conciliating attentions of handling and caressing them is perfectly wrong, and at variance with economy, cannot be disputed; but if Mr. Rarey could exert an influence over a great majority of breeders to induce them to treat their young stock judiciously, he would accomplish a feat still greater than the subjugation of the horse. THE FOUMART. BY MARTINGALE. "When foxes leave the earths at night, And hawks and wood-crows perch in sleep; The Keeper's Song. When a stranger passes through a large wood at night, and all around is clothed with a gloom and silence so deep that he feels as though long-legged spiders were crawling over his flesh, his attention may be suddenly arrested by hearing a rustling noise in the thick underwoodperhaps approaching the very spot where he stands listening. That noise proceeds from the movements of the foumart bent upon its prey. This wood-burgher, like the rest of the wood vermin, as well as the rapacious birds, possesses peculiar habits. It is rarely seen by day, which is the time of its rest and sleep; and only stirs abroad at night, like the badger and the fox, when engaged in a plundering excursion; for the foumart, with the other minions of the moon, must live. The foumart, however, though extremely vigilant in its way, does not possess the untiring alertness and activity of the weasel. But it is not less determined in securing its object of pursuit. The foumart, besides, has a remarkably fine nose, and can hunt as correctly as the best-trained hound, pointer, or spaniel. Once upon the trail, it follows the scent with unerring accuracy and resolute perseverance, through ali intricacies and in the darkest night. The proof of this is to be found in the fact that a keeper, who was much annoyed by the ravages of foumarts in one part of the extensive preserves, determined, if possible, to accomplish their entire destruction. He knew in what part of the cover their lair or den was situated in the interstices of some jutting crags, shaded with dark yews above, and decorated below with the bright-green neat'stongue fern, with the adjacent ground so much broken and shattered that the spot at all times was difficult of approach. From this spot he trailed the entrails of a rabbit, as a lure, along a very tortuous path, seldom visited even by the woodman; through the underwood; then along a narrow footway, only known as a "short cut" to the well-head of the neighbouring fish ponds; next, bending to the right, to an open space where there was some rising ground, decorated with a group of Portugal laurels, once the site of a snug wood-hut. He adopted this scheme, because he had always failed to trap them near their own den, where every bait, however skilfully placed, was invariably shunned. In this spot, which was more easy of access than other parts of the cover, the keeper set his steel traps in such a manner as to lull all suspicion on the part of these cautious animals. On visiting the spot next morning, he found two foumarts dead, firmly grasped in the steel teeth of their destroyer. He repeated the scheme several times, and was so successful that he was not troubled with this species of vermin for the remainder of the year, though he was not quite certain that he had effected their complete destruction. The foumart is an animal of solitary habits, but is extremely cautious and suspicious of danger; a night ranger, and more fond of the gloom and darkness of midnight than the brightness and cheerfulness of day. It fixes its abode in the most dense and intricate part of a large wood, and therefore the most difficult to be reached by human footsteps; selecting, as has just been intimated, rocky ground, or old timber trees whose gnarled roots are a protection to its home, by preventing the possibility of ejectment by the spade, or being penetrated, from its twisting character, by the most determined little terrier. It is from this secure home, where gloom prevails during the day and thick darkness at night, and silence at all hours, that the foumart steals forth, about nine or ten o'clock at night, according to the state of the weather, in search of its prey-never stirring however, like the fox, if the night be stormy; because, with dripping boughs and wet ground, its purposes are likely to be completely frustrated, and its exertions rendered useless. Shaping its course through the thick underwood to those parts of the cover, or beyond its extreme margin, where rabbits abound, the foumart commences its nocturnal chase. If, however, it comes across the track of a hare, it will take up the scent as correctly as the besttrained lurcher of the most expert poacher, and, in many instances, fairly run poor puss down, unless it may be some old hare bent on an excursion to a considerable distance to pay a visit to a doe. In that case, the foumart will desert, give up the chase, and hark back, and turn its attention to game nearer home-to some well-known colony of rabbits, for instance, on the outside of the wood, or some exhausted quarry or broken ground, where the chances of success are more certain and the amount of exertion less. If, in approaching this spot, some out-lying rabbit-some expelled member of the colonial department, or discontented representative, wishful of accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, and thus free himself from the coney-parliamentary trammelsshould be suddenly aroused, there is such a rush of alarm that the whole community in the Downing-street burrows becomes most dreadfully frightened at an unceremonious ejectment; knowing that some daring outlaw has presumed to invade their sacred territory, and spread death and desolation around; depriving them of the "nether vert" of young clover, and the tender grass which grows between the "full hassocks, and effecting the destruction of nearly the whole colonial community. Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind. The foumart, actuated by the expectancy of a rich banquet, and not the least disconcerted by the first burst of alarm, steals into the first burrow; and not only prevents the escape of any of its occupants, but kills the whole lot, face to face, without the least fear or compunction. Unlike the other "Diana's foresters," (the weasels), the foumart does not, after killing his victims by sucking the veins, take his departure for another drain, but remains in the burrow. Nor will this merciless destroyer leave the spot in which he has ensconced himself-literally living in his own larder, and helping himself to repletion-but abides there for two or three days, until the whole is consumed. The same sanguinary plan is pursued in the next burrow, unless the colony, knowing that their bitter enemy has taken possession without the power of ejectment or retribution on their part, take alarm, desert their home, and fix themselves in a spot of greater security, with probably a similar fate awaiting them. The destruction which a foumart can accomplish in this way, in the course of a comparatively short time, is very extensive; nor, under these circumstances, is this destroyer easily ejected or deprived of existence even by the keeper himself; for, if a terrier is sent into the burrow, the foumart, like the weasel, can throw out such neaseous effluvia, that he quits the burrow, and refuses to enter again; and, in that case, the means of suffocation are, if possible by the character of the ground, resorted to. The accurate "nose" of the foumart enables it to effect destruction in other ways. Stealing from the cover in the dead of night, he glides along the adjacent meadow or stubble, and silently approaches the "form" of a hare or leveret. All is still around; and the deep silence, which is sufficient to awe a stranger to such a scene, is only occasionally broken by the distant sharp bark of the fox, or the call of the jay from the centre of the wood, repeating the notes or cries which it has heard during the preceding day. These noises do not disconcert the foumart. Nor does the sudden brightness of the young or declining moon, glaneing through the intervening clouds over the mighty sea of woodland foliage, and illuming the very spot where the destroyer is approaching, divert him from his purpose; -much less the impetuous, but mysterious rush of the midnight wind, suddenly springing on the wing, taking the tree tops by assault, and sweeping over the scene with a loud and appalling roar. It is almost impossible to imagine a more treacherous stealth than that which is adopted by the foumart in approaching its victim. So far from it being like the rush or bound of the weasel, when agility and resolution are most effectively combined, it is, perhaps, from its stealthiness alone the more fatal, on the stab-in-the-dark principle. It is not in the clear light of day, but in the darkness of night, that the attack is made; still, it is not without due caution, and therefore more certain. On the least noise of alarm striking the trumpet ears of poor pussever wakeful to the approach of danger-the foumart pauses: on the least |