THE Too OPEN SEASON.
The first of September and the first week or two of September are not what they once were ; and this year some of the barleys are still uncut. Does anyone anywhere still use the setter or pointer ? It was once, at least as great a pleasure to watch a good dog ranging and setting as to fire the gun ; and gave at any rate the more youthful sports- man a sort of exc:tement that is not paralleled in other sporting habits. It is some compensation that the birds are left undisturbed to a later date, when they are less callow. This form of sport is almost dead ; but I have had ocular evidence this week of a local return to the much older sport of hawking. Peregrines are being tamed for the purpose. Not long since a beautiful bird that had just begun to learn his lesson well after infinite pains spent on his education, was shot dead by a vagrant with a gun ; and one of the difficulties of reviving the sport is this difficulty of defending the hawk itself.
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