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Cocker' will be found to contain not only instruction, but be a source of amusement to the reader.". An extensive routine of practice for fifty years, aided by the acute observations of others, and committing to paper from time to time those of his own, he considers, enabled him to afford such information as may pilot the juvenile breeder through so pleasing, yet so arduous an undertaking; knowing well that observations founded upon experience, are the surest guide to truth in every science, and are more likely to succeed than the most refined and plausible theories.

Not having had a tithe even of the experience claimed by Mr. Sketchley, it would be improper in us to pronounce any sort of opinion or judgment on his work; we shall therefore take an extract from it, and leave our readers in this 'branch of sporting, to be their own judges of its merits. We must, however, do the author the justice to state, that his directions appear plain and intelligible to every capacity; and that his forms for keeping a regular account of every department of cocking bear the stamp of utility, and are such as must prove extremely useful to the breeder and amateur.

66 TO BREEDERS.

"In early attachment to, and pursuit after, cocking, and on our commencement of breeding, we are frequently burried on in our choice of a single cock from a day's fight, or a promiscuous match, that has exhibited appearances of courage and beel. Although condition will not give heel, yet it very much promotes courage, inasmuch as to carry an indifferently bred

cock through a tolerably well contested battle.

"From these superficial trials and our own want of experience we are induced to purchase cocks of this description to breed from, which must inevitably involve us in error. But maturer experience will inform us, that high condition will incite courage in a half-bred cock; and a bloody heeler in that situation may succeed against one of superior game and less heel. therefore shews how necessary it is to guard against a prepossession of any single cock, however meritorious.

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"To avoid this youthful partiality, if you attend regular mains, you will have an opportunity of seeing a number of well-bred brothers, whose mode of fighting and supporting their battles in any stage, mark them for steady fighters, good heelers, ready mouths, and deep game. Such proofs would warrant your endeavours to procure one of these warriors the least injured in his contest, more immediately if their feathers and other concomitants are to your wish. Practice and acute observation will tend to inform you what feathered birds are the most approved, as well as the best in constitution. But of those endowed with every sought-for requisite, the black-reds are most in estimation. The difficulties attendant on our early endeavours are only to be surmounted by a steady attention to those particulars that are requisite in this pursuit; and when you have fixed on such cocks, whose originality is well known, and whose breed has stood the test of experience, it will not be difficult to procure such, either by

interest or connexion. If hens or pullets cannot be obtained, (which

should

should if practicable) you must be equally cautious in selecting them from other sorts similar in feather, constitution, and every other at tendant. Having once arranged your brood, conform to your directions and at a proper season you may conimence

:

"BREEDING.-Gentlemen who have been in the habit of breeding, may have, from keeping the old brood too long together, brought their cocks to a stand still: when by a judicious mode of keeping in and in, that circumstance might not have taken place. It is generally admitted, that a cock is in full prime and vigour at two years old. But how frequently we find that cocks are continued with hens until they are six or seven years old. At three years old it is well known that he begins to lose that sprightly bloom he wears at two; bis length of plume encreases, and his hack exhibits too loose a texture, dangling over his throat. When this is discerned, we ought to substitute another in his stead; for he will become inactive, languid, and balk his craving partners and you may breed in vain. The hens may in general be held to a longer date, as they retain the power to propagate beyond the period allotted to the cock. If this opinion is granted, the impropriety of continuing them beyond that period may account for the slow and inactive cocks so frequently met with.

To elucidate the foregoing remarks, in order to enable you to judge of the constitution of the brood-cock you mean to select, he should have every apparent feature of health: such as a ruddy complexion-his feathers close and short-not cold or dry-flesh firm and compact-full breasted, yet VOL. XLVI.-No. 271,

taper and thin behind-full in the girth-well coupled-lofty and spiring-a good thigh-the bean of his leg very strong-a quick large eye-strong beak, crooked and big at setting on-not more than two years old, put to early pullets, or a blooming stag with two-year-old bens-and when a cock, with pullets of his own getting. Great experience justifies me in vouching for the prosperity of the practice. In order that you may attain a sufficient number of in and in for your establishment hereafter, March, April, May, and June, if they have been early together, are the months to propagate : the latter month will not be too late for two-year-old cocks. For the two first days of a long main very early chickens have their inconveniences; and if you have none at hand till April they will probably be esteemed sufficiently early, as the springs are not so congenial for breeding as formerly.

In the choice of your hens let them be rightly plumed to your cock: nor let your choice fall upon those that are large, but rather suffer the cock to make up deficiency in the hens being small; their shape should be similar to the cock-lofty necks-short and close feathered. A true blood heu is seldom or never gummy in the bone of her leg, but clean, sinewy, and, in length, proportionate to the rest of the body, with a well-set thigh, long, clean, and taper toes, so that they may, as far as is practicable, be as near in every respect to your original brood, as the nature of breeding will admit of. Deviation will take place in feather, &c. instances of which have frequently occurred with me, where Dame Nature has interfered in her varying change; that notwithstanding D

every

every well adapted system, she will prevail in surprizing us with some productive alteration which inexperience is at a loss to account for. Fifteen years or more I had enjoyed an invariable production of the most complete black-reds bred by any amateur, without a single instance of deviation during that period, but on the sixteenth year I had several light piles in one hatch; no change of eggs could possibly take place or was there a shadow of doubt of interference with any other cock, but a strong recurrence to the pile at that distant period. A well regulated account of my cocks enabled me to ascertain that there had been a pile in the cross five years previous to my having them out of Shropshire; so that they held highly regular for twenty-one years, not only in plumage but in every desired requisite. To have gone on with this deviation would in the end have produced spangles, &c. Of course the pullets were cast aside, and the cocks fought off. By a persevering conduct in selecting the darkest, or those most resembling your original attachment, is the surest criterion you can possibly pursue in keeping up, not only their feather, but constitution.

"Let then no recommendation, however, bigh, induce you to breed from cock or hen (when you find it necessary to make a cross) either with one or the other, that differs essentially from your old brood; for notwithstanding every judicious caution in the selection of that choice, the introduction of a new cross (though every way similar) may prove more injurious than the evil you are endeavouring to correct; therefore in this case your

enquiries and ocular demonstration should be your peculiar care.

"Your brood now selected under every due consideration, I. should recommend from four to six pullets or hens, being as great a number as should be put to a cock, (probably only four hens to a stag) and should always prefer a maiden cock to a fought one, of the same sort; the former suffers no inconvenience in being fed and tendered by hot meals, close covering, clipping, ruffled temper, loss of blood, and receiving unknown injuries, whereby the intention of breeding may be materially frustrated. On the contrary, they are endowed with nature's best gifts, and of course best calculated to answer the desired end. I should advise their being put together as early as November or December, that the cock may be perfectly at ease on his walk, and have ample time for ingratiating himself with his new acquaintances. Every gentleman has an opportunity of selecting proper places for breeding, where they can experience as little interruption by dogs and vermin, as possible. The distance from any other house where fowls are kept should be at least half a mile-the situation, a dry gravelly soil; and it would be better if they could enjoy a constant spring of clear water, and shade, the nearer your brood-place the better. A situation where cocks are liable to interfere with your hens has too frequently occasioned the failure of supposed brothers in the same hatch, and has been the cause of greater derangements in the course of breeding than any other circumstance whatever. Another necessary caution is, uot to suffer any hens different in breed to be turned

down

down with any set of sisters; for notwithstanding every caution in selecting eggs, you may be deceived, or held dubious, and ruin every well projected plan. Have a marked attention to see that your brood cock bears himself well to all bis heus. It frequently happens that one or more labours under his displeasure, an antipathy we are yet at a loss to account for; in that case they become useless and should be removed. If his general conduct be severe, I should suspect him of cowardice, for several cocks of this description in the course of my breeding have turned out but indifferent. You will find that those hens under this plumed bashaw's arrogant dislike are generally held at an awful distance, and are seldom or never attendant upon him, but are recluse and solitary. This may account for the many unprolific eggs in extensive breeding. Whenever you have occasion to remove any, be the cause what it will, do not disturb the repose of the rest by turning down a fresh hen; for by such a change I have been deprived of the use of the whole for that season, nor should it he practised at any brood department or elsewhere where valuable hens are, without observing their conduct towards each other. Such has been the confict upon those occasions, that they have never recovered their usual gaiety and constitution, but gradually pined away.

"The saving of eggs too early, which you intend to set, from hens that have not been with your brood cock from the beginning, has occasioned such errors as time alone can correct; and although even a few may only partake of the prolific stamp of another cock, those few may be productive of incal

culable mischief, and engraft a blood so every way different from your own (the cause too frequently observed) that in the course of fighting, you have good and bad cocks supposed to be equally bred alike, and you are embarrassed to know how to remedy the evil. This circumstance, and another equally, if not more dangerous, (the unwarrantable practice of changing the eggs) every fancier who has been in the habit of long breeding, has experienced. To obviate such errors, so as not to admit of a doubt (at least as far as human foresight can insure us) have them so early together as may in that respect totally exclude the idea :-even with this precaution, I would not save the few first eggs, nor the last.

"It is not in the compass of practice to avoid every particular inconvenience that arises in breeding, or I could wish that every hen could lay distinctly-that the eggs might be marked differently, and of course hatched under separate hens; for every sister may not enjoy an equal share of good health. In this particular, how requisite it is, that the person employed or engaged in the pursuit should have a knowledge of those deviations. of health to which these birds are subject in order that they may be detected as early as possible. It does not always fall to the lot of those whose province it is to superintend them, to discriminate to that extent: but the many inconveniences and errors attendant on this pursuit, should point out the necessity of their being possessed of such qualifications. A single day should not pass without seeing the general brood, and the utmost attention paid to every minutiæ to prevent the errors committed

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by

by neglect; and more particularly so, when we experience some de fault, notwithstanding our utmost care, for it certainly behoves us to exert our best endeavours to bring them into the hands of the feeder, in whom we confide, as unexceptionable as possible."

To be concluded in our next.

ACCOUNT of the RELIGIOUS RITES of the IRISH ROMAN CATHOLICS, celebrated annually on St. John's Eve, at GOOGAUNBARRA, County of Cork; by an Eye Witness.

To the Editor of the Sporting Magazine.

SIR,

IT is with regret I present to public view, through your interesting pages, a new and disgusting picture of modern Irish barbarism. I call it new, although it be the invariable observance of generations beyond all date and reckoning, and a branch of the wisdom of ages long past; because it is neyertheless unknown, 1 apprehend, to most people in this country, and even to great numbers, even in Ireland, except by slight and unheeded report. The report is even dishelieved by many there, or taken for granted to be greatly exaggerated. This is quite in the course of human affairs. That part of a people in a state of civilization, who do not travel, remain, the majority of them probably, to the end of their lives, altogether unacquainted with the barbarous and unenlightened condition of the neglected outskirts of their country. How few are there in London, or even in most parts of England, who have ever heard of the custom of bundling, or have the least idea of the import of that

term, although the custom has prevailed immemorially in Wales and Cornwall, and the United States of America, and subsists, to this bour, in places where it has not been yet expelled by the refinement of modern manners. How little is actually known of the mad-brained fanatical vagaries of the Welch and Cornish Jumpers, although the name be sufficiently familiar?— There is, and has been, in certain remote provinces of France, during more than fifteen centuries, a degraded cast of the most deplorable · of human beings, even utterly excluded from the pale of all other buman society; and yet there may be millions in the same France, uninformed that such a race bas

ever existed.

In reflecting on the general fate of Ireland, the regret of the philosopher and friend of humanity, must still be more profound and touching. Who that knows any thing of her past and present condition and whose soul is not degraded by the cowardly, interested, and contemptible hypocrisy of these religious times, can hesitate to pronounce ber the most unfortunate of nations? Fixed in the centre of civilization, her sons and daughters graced with the fairest human form, endowed with minds surpassing in vigour, acuteness, and elo. quence, and bearts glowing with the warmth, and overflowing with the milk of buman kindness-great part of Ireland is yet in a state of ferocious anarchy, which would disgrace the most savage hordes of Asia, and nearly the whole mass of mind in the lower classes is clouded by the most barbarous ignorance, and contaminated with the most slavish chicanery. The very prin ciples of faith and honour, and common justice, are extinct in

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