RECOLLECTIONS OF HUNTING AND FISHING.1' Tun present season has not
so far produced many books about hunting, and we have read Sir Reginald Graham's Foxhunting Recollections with much pleasure.. His memory goes back to the Crimean era ; he hunted in 1857 with the Ted worth under Mr. Thomas Assbeton Smith, and in the "sixties" with the Burton under Lord Henry Bentinck. He has also much to tell of Badminton, and the Duke of Beaufort, whom he • George III. as Ban, IC:marsh, and Statesman. By Deckles Willson. With 25 Portraits. London: T. C. and E. C. Jack. [12s. 65. net.] 1, (1) Po:hunting Recollections. By Sir Reginald Graham, Bart. London : Eseleigh Nash. [10e. net.i— (2) Days Stolen for Sport. , By Philip Goan,
With 52 Illustrations. London T. Werner Milne. [102. 6d. net.)
accompanied in 1863 with twenty-two couples of doglionnds‘to hunt wolves in Poitou. Sport was not good,- as we learn frOm Sir Reginald's account, and also, strangely enough, from an independent description recently given to the present ,writer by an old -coachman who went with the party as a stable. helper. In 1871 Sir Reginald became Master of the Cotswold, and be subsequently ruled over the New Forest, the Tedwortb, and the Hurworth Hunts. Of the sport and sportsmen be met with he has plenty to tell and many anecdotes. We can only transcribe one of a foxhunting parson, who, being asked somewhere towards Shrove Tuesday whether he ever hunted in Lent, replied : "Never, Sir, except on a Lent horse." The latter part of the book is concerned with the writer's father, Sir Bellingham Graham, a noted sportsman, who succeeded Mr. Osbaldeston in 1821 in the Quorn country. Some extracts from his unpublished diaries will be found. He began cubhunting as early as July 31st when Master of the Pytchley. He was a man of grand ideas, for when he was offered a subscription of 2700 a year to hunt the Hambledon country he remarked : "Barely enough to keep me in spur leathers and blacking." We turn from the memoirs of a veteran foxhunter to the recollections of an angler who may Jay claim to as varied experience in fishing as falls to the lot of any man. Mr. Philip Geen in Days Stolen for Sport gives a further instalment of his doings and the doings of his numerous family and his many friends. Ho writes in the same genial and facetious style as he did in the earlier book of his which we noticed in these columns. Those who were amused by that volume will be equally pleased by this one. Mr. Geen begins by telling us all about his engagement and his honeymoon, which was spent trout-fishing in Devonshire. He was twenty and his bride seventeen. Now they have children and grand- children so numerous that they filled a little Cornish village, whither all the family went to spend a delightful holiday and fished for mackerel, conger, and ling. Sometimes we read a great many pages without coming to the sport, and the homely details are numerous and intimate. But Mr. Geen is such a good-humoured, good-tempered, good-natured man that no one can be impatient. When he does come to the fishing it is excellently described, and we share his pleasure and disappointment whether it be with the little trout of the West or the thirteen-pounder be lost on the Kennet. We have also tales of Hampshire grayling,, salmon at Glenelg, pike near Salisbury, and monster Thames trout. The sea-fishing deals for the most part with pollack ; but we do not know why Mr. Geen is con- temptuous of tarpon, seeing he has never caught one. Ireland he loves, and writes of her people with delight. Those who contemplate fishing excursions to Connemara or Donegal can glean useful information from Mr. Geen, whose experience of fishing hotels is wide. The sport he describes is, as will be seen, mostly fishing, though on the front page of the book our author is depicted with a gun. His bag, as be tells us in this book, includes a fox and an otter or two. We prefer Mr. Geen as the genial angler. He has a real love of the country, and has only found a life of business tolerable when he could slip off for a day's sport as often as possible.
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