SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does ,wt neceasarily preclude subsequent review.] Mr. Gerald Lascelles knows the New Forest as well as any an living ; he was made Deputy Surveyor by Lord Beaconsfield in 1880, and in Thirty-five Years in the New Forest (Edward Arnold, 12s. 6d. net) he gives us the record of his forestry and reminiscences of hunting, shooting, falconry, his friends and his guests. Mr. Lascelles has had Royal visitors at the King's House, among them, in 1902, the Crown Prince of Germany, who rode about the Forest for two days and left his host wonder- ing who was the most bored of the party—" probably Metter- nioh." Hunting in the New Forest ranges from stag, fox, and otter to the lowliest form of all, the pursuit of the squirrel with the squail or snogg, a stick weighted with lead. Of falconry Mr. Lascelles is a past-master, and some of his pleasantest pages deal with his hawks ; his favourite, perhaps, was Shelagh, who killed fifty-four rooks in her first season and sixty-two in her second, and was " as sweet-tempered and gentle as a bird could be, and we all loved her." But perhaps the chapter which will surprise most readers is that in which Mr. Lascelles gives the records of shooting in recent times under the system of licences. A bag in a single season of 2,377 head, including 83 pheasants, 61 partridges, 38 woodcock, 229 snipe, 374 pigeons, and 1,555 rabbits, shot under licences costing £40, should prove in any year a satisfactory bargain.
Previous page
