and therefore borrowed a friend's owl, which he conveyed, by train, eighteen miles to the scene of operation. But when our friend, anxious to begin, peeped into the bottom of the basket, he found that that most prudent bird had anticipated its probable fate by dying a natural death; so nothing was left but to return to Rome minus the day's sport, the railway fare, and the owl!

Talking of "owls" reminds me of a rich conversation which once took place in my presence.

"Signor H," said an English lady, "is there no remedy? those two dogs in the butcher's shop opposite bark, all night so that we can get no sleep."

Signor H, who habitually wears an expression of profound sagacity, which lends an air of wisdom to the most trivial utterances, replied, "is he a watch-dogue ?"

"Oh yes, certainly a watch-dog."

"Then if he is a watch-dogue, it is the duty of a watch-dogue to bark; and so you can make no complaint."

"But he howls fearfully all night. He's a regular nuisance."

Upon hearing this a new light evidently burst upon the Signor's mind and expressed itself in his features. "Hah," said he, "it is the duty of a watch-dogue to bark, but not to owl. I should, if I was you, go immediately to the Presidenza of the district, and complain that the dogue is kept to bark and that he owl instead."

We have passed, by an easy and natural transition, from crows to owls, and from owls to dogs; and here I may take the opportunity of saying a few words on Italian sporting dogs, of which strictly speaking there are but two kinds, for though one may see setters, spaniels, and retrievers, they are not indigenous, and are for the most part in the hands of English residents abroad; so that of dogs essentially Italian we are reduced to two which are used for shooting purposes, viz., the poodle and the pointer. Of these the poodle is seldom, I believe, shot over, for although he possesses sagacity beyond most dogs, and can be trained to almost anything, his endurance is not equal to his talent, and so his appearance in the field may be taken as exceptional. It is ludicrous enough, though, that same appearance, whenever he does so far condescend; for, having all his wool shaved off his hind quarters and middle, and his legs stripped of all but a little tuft under each knee, he looks much more of a subject for a travelling showman than anything else; and as he goes lobbing along with his queer little tail, with its solitary tuft of hair stuck into the air, for all the world like a ragged mopstick, he looks about as much in his element at the heels of a sportsman as a performing monkey would! This shaving of the body, ridiculous as it may seem to us, is in reality a great charity towards the animal, and relieves him of a great weight of heavy wool that would be most distressing under an Italian sun; but when it comes to shaving smooth terriers, spaniels, and so on, I admit I think it is going too far. However, the fashion puts money into the pockets of a large number of canine barbers (chiefly women), who charge at the rate of a franc a head, little and big. On the fine broad steps of the Piazza di Spagna, in the Forum of Trajan, and in almost every public spot, one may see these artists performing upon a large circle of the canine species But I believe the barber of the Forum of Trajan

is the most celebrated, and certainly has the most lively trade, and here one may find any morning a complete series of animals in the various stages of the operation, from the animal with the wool still curling thick upon him, to the shivering beast who has just received his final plunge in cold water to complete the shampoo.

But the pointer, as I said before, is the legitimate occupant of the sportsman's kennel in Italy. Ugly brutes they are enough, but very useful, and stand work well, and are used not only for pointers, but as retrievers, and indeed very often as " Jack of all trades." They are less symmetrical than one of our own well-bred pointers-have a squarer chest and hips, more prominent joints and couplings, and a less intelligent head, and a peculiar redness of the eye (suggestive of having been up very late last night), with an ungainly droop of the head, which spoils their beauty. Here again fashion steps in, and ordains that the tail shall be cut off about three inches above the rump, which gives it a very forlorn and helpless look, especially when wagged.

As yet I have not been very complimentary either to men or dogs, and it is high time that I should do justice to a considerable number of Italian sportsmen. Although, regarded in a mass, they fall below their English and French contemporaries, I believe that there are many among them who, either in skill or endurance, would not yield the palm to first-rate shots of either country.

In making this statement, I am not merely giving my own opinion, which from my inexperience, is simply worthless, but I give the judgment of those who have the best right to form one-sportsmen of our country who have been constantly in the habit of enjoying the sport with Italian shots. One of these has told me frequently, that though he holds the mainbody of them in more or less contempt as becomes a true-born Briton with his inborn notions of sport, still he must make exceptions, and that he has met Italians who can go through a hard day, and make as good an average as the best of our home-bred crack shots. And certainly if anything would test what stuff a man is made of, I should say it would be a heavy day in the marshes round Oetia and at the mouth of the Tiber, where the sportsman often has to wade for hours nearly up to his middle, and that in a country where the very name of wet feet is enough to send a man home shivering with Roman fever. Those, however, who are willing to venture on this amphibious style of sport, and who have energy and trength enough to go through with it as ought to be done, generally have something to show for it at night, which the ordinary run of bird-frighteners on the Campagna cannot always say.

My readers can now choose for themselves whether they would prefer to try a day of this description, or stay in the city, when they happen to be making a visit to Rome. For my part I would say, by all means try the experiment; but do not go in the expectation of getting such sport as you may meet with in England in the stubles or on Get up very early, and go out to the spot you may have selected in the early morning; you will find that the walk at that time of the day in the Campagna will amply repay you if you see nothing but tomtits from morning till noon. If you are the most inveterate sportsman out, and if your whole soul is centred upon your gamebag, nevertheless I venture to predict that that exhilarating air and won

the moors.

derful landscape, with the green Campagna rolling before you in all its beauty and freshness, and dotted on all sides with ruined tombs and crumbling villas, will melt you into a different frame of mind, and make you contented even with the most unproductive of tramps, and the emptiest of gambags. I wish I had the time and opportunity to do so myself: "many a morning would I there be seen," if it could be so; and though, perhaps, as I have often done before, I might expend much powder to little purpose, I should always be consoled by a thought which I heard expressed many years ago by an old Scotch servant of our own. This excellent domestic had been employed to make a raid upon certain disturbers of our night's rest, which happily are more plentiful in foreign parts than in England. All day did that faithful woman hunt and search, over mattress and pillow; and fearful was the din that she made in the quiet recesses of that old four-poster. At night her mistress inquired of her what success she had had; to which the zealous huntress replied, with that cheerful spirit which always marks the true sportsman in adversity, "Hoot, no! we have'na catched none: but I'se warrant I gien 'em a rare fright."

THE GRAND MASTER (PROVINCIAL).

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY 8. WILLIAMS.

"It looks like rather a straggling start, sir, and it is well to get 'em together with something a little better than the dog-whistle business which certain Grand Masters so much affect."

Some seasons since there was a Grand Master down the Great Western way, who was a Grand Master, although in the provinces, for he was a keen huntsman in the field and a noble Lord in the Peerage. It so happened that during his day here, the author of the very best book on the Noble Science since the days of Beckford-Colonel Cook and Mr. Delmè Radclyffe nevertheless and notwithstanding-chancing to be in the neighbourhood, got the loan of hack and went to have a quiet peep at the way in which My Lord did the thing. Of course the stranger, being himself an old M.F.H., took up a position in a ride, where he soon had a view; but discreetly held his tongue. By-and-by the hounds got to be busy about him, and presently up came the Grand Master, who straightway gave a couple or two of noisy ones a cheer.

"I beg your pardon," said the looker-on; "but I think those hounds are running heel."

"Would you-something or othered-be good enough to mind your own business, sir, and leave my hounds to me!" was the ready response, in not the most agreeable of tones.

"Well, I was wrong to interfere," muttered the other to himself, as he turned his horse's head for the road again.

But they could do nothing with it afterwards, for my Lord had got their heads up all wrong, and so they were soon jogging on for a likely place to find another.

"I say, old fellow," said a friend to the Master on the way,

"You'd