(Japan Weekly Mail.) dulges ina ttrevival." Te turns rox Hemitde Every now and then the British public inthe past wit lowing ride "an Tevepence" and determines to ao something to evince the'value it fet upon the manners, customs, sports or habits of its ancestors.
And in good trath, it must have been a pretty sight in the old time to see a hawking party wending its way down the glade on one Of those enchanting "days, which—when, th do come—are more enchanting in -Enj than anywhere, when the air iso bright and inspiring, the sun so friendly and' alluring, when the anton tints on the hea -dewed Teaves colour the landscape with a thous enamouring beauties, and this lovely earth, musical with the notes of blackbird and linnet, awakens feelings of secure and unclouded joy in the heart, which then luxuriates even over indifferent things, and wastes its kindliness on unconscious nature or'the vacant air. The hooded birds sit gravely on the master's: or ristress's wrist, the elds? eportenien compare the experiences of past' years or talk in subdued whispers over the last news frotix Court, the rapid rise of the young marquis, or the fall of the great earl, while the youing people, gliding easily into couples as chance, caprice" or the irresistible gravitation of the heart's master passion dictated, ring the chimes of their gay fancies or stray invention, or exchanged in sweet. converse the immense noth. past, and the only chance of getting sone ings of a dawning love. But these days are lying odour of their sweetness is to have a And we have had our little revival! Sati. ated with our round of pleasures, the number and variety of which are so great and bewildering, we have sighed for new sensations, and—found them. Our rowing and riding, our paper-hunts and rackets, have lost their flavour. The trim parterres and'smooth lawns of the Bluff Gardens, enlivened though they be with pretty flowers and the Colorados band, delight us no more. Like Hamlet, "we have of late (but, wherefore, we know not} Jost all our mirth and foregone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with our dispositions that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to us a sterile promontory'; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave overhanging firmament, this majo tical roof fretted with golden fire, why it ap. pears no other thing to us, than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours." We must hawk—there is absolutely nothing else to be done. Even the joy'of finding our long. sought missing link has palled onus. The happy creature, whose rudimentary conscience knows nothing of the sin of Eden, and whose therefore blameless life is sustained with innocently stolen esculents, no longer gives us that delight which the discovery of an unfallen creature who has escaped our sinful superiority. should produce in us, We trample on: our ari. Yet who are we that in our lofty fastiiousness we should look at him from afar with sweet odours, musk, or preventive fluids May he not rather fear contamination from us? May not his guiltless soul?—by, the way, the question of whether he has one or not is still open. But, that our pithecoid should have lost his charm! In very deed we are doubly fallen. But to our hawking.
In the middle of the year hawks always incult, so that we cannot' justly complain of the fusty looking appearance of the birds, But judged with entire partiality they looked like the guardian demons of a bone-boilery, What remained to them of feather seemed to have made fortuitous acquaintance with a glue-pot, and they had as much healthy: life them a5 a few sparrows and hieer prey for their id times when the tt ores in-honour-of Moloch, the drimis'and trumpets struck'tip a tintamarre to drown the cries of the thidren in the furniée—possibly of the mothers,' too. 'The unconscious Gand of the Colorado, intent upon crotchets atid quavers; acted the same part, aiid. the worthy musicians led off merry tunes t6 the slaughter of the innocents, whose intended fate was doubtless beyond' the thoughts of the gentle artists. First came the process of "seeling" the eyes of the quarry. ° This feat is performed ing a thread through one eyelid round the head, and then through. the other eyelid of "the "bird. This humane Factice has the advantage of narrowing the leid of the bird's vision and preventing his seeing the hawk, so that what'he loses'in pain he gains in confidence. If he escapes' the hawk, he' only goes about with cicatrized eyelids' forthe remaining term of his natural life. If he falls, he "has no one.to blame but himeelf It very fortunately. did not'cs¢aj that this' gentle practice was being observ' otherwise even a jaded ~public might have made an ugly practical. protest against it—a very foolish protest, of course, because as this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.