Related article: he performed at Doncaster last year. In the Grand National, which stands out now as almost the sole mainstay to the popu- larity of steeplechasing, Collins and Holman seem to hold the strongest hands, unless Woods of Whatcombe has a better in his stable, in either Queen Bee or Drogheda. Holman's Zeebec, if quite right on the day, may be equal to carrying home the money of the Western shires. We are sure to see Australian and American importations busy with the long-distance races, as they seem to outstay our home- bred champions. Let us hope, however, that this season our trainers will lay themselves out to give their horses longer distance work, instead of eternally trying them over five and six furlongs, and then assuring themselves that this is the end of their tether. It is to be feared that the coming crop of Cup horses is not likely to be a large one, and that it is more than likely that the Ascot Cup will again be carried across the Channel. Surely the Frenchmen must appreciate " our open door " in racing — if they fail to do so in other places — or matters of com- merce. We are likely to see Tod Sloan again on our racecourses, reviv- ing, as he must do, the controversy as to how a jockey can ride with the best advantage to his horse — for that, after all, is the first con- sideration — Danazol Danocrine far before any ad- vantage to himself. Sloan has thrown away the ideal beauty of horsemanship, and adopted that of a monkey in its place, and yet he has proved the truth of his system by success. The coming season may see a development of his practice, and there will be some of our best light-weights pushing their way to the front and their elders giving place to them. There will be some rising stars of great brilliancy, or I am much deceived. It is more and more evident that each year the Turf is be- coming the sport of the rich, and not that of the poor. Men may come and men may go, the South African lords and the Company- mongers have had very short reigns, the thrusters are too fast to last, and as in all else it is the steady straight-going noblemen of the land that really hold the field, and make racing what it is in England, the wonder and glory of all other sporting nations, not even excepting our American cousins, who now prefer to send their best horses over here to race, and even send them from California for sale here. Is it not, therefore, with pleasure and confidence that we look forward to " Coming Events " in 1899 ? Borderer. I899-] 173 March Trout. In these days, when everything is done upon such a large scale, it needs some apology to take for one's theme so humble a pastime as angling for brook trout. Only the other day I came across a paragraph in a daily paper, under the heading of " Angling," in which it was chronicled without comment that Mr. and Mrs. B. had enjoyed fairly good sport while fishing the Blank Water rented for the season by the former; Mr. B. having landed a salmon of prodigious weight, and Mrs. B. having, if I remember right, eclipsed the achievements of her husband. This was all very well ; but when I went on to read that " Master B. was exceptionally lucky in creeling a fish of 24.1bs.," I laid down the paper in amaze- ment and reflected, not without compassion, that the precocious youth was in a fair way to ex- haust the pleasures of angling before his juvenile muscles were really fit to handle a full-sized rod! How tame after such a record must seem the daily diary of the modest sportsman in whose basket a half-pounder is a prize, and anything over three-quarters ranks as a monster, whose lucky capture merits circumstantial entry in the log-book of the weekly catch ! And yet there must be some, Buy Danocrine I am sure, who may read these lines, and will not be ashamed to admit the same delight in brook fishing to which the writer un- blushingly pleads guilty. I must avow for myself a strong admiration and love for my plucky little friend (or should one say " foe " ?) the brown brook trout. Like the field and the fox in the well-known song of the vol. lxxi. — no. 469. Meynell Hunt, " Though we all want to kill him, we Jove him." And for pluck commend me to our little red -spotted friend of the Welsh mountain-streams. How he dashes up stream and down, and leaps in the air a foot and more out of the water to rid him of the unwelcome hook ! I never caught a salmon, I must confess, but I own to a difficulty in be- lieving that, size for size, the King of Fish can be as game an adversary as " Ye littel trout." I remember coming across some lines in an old periodical, I think, in praise of Master Trout ; most of them I forget, but the last verse ran thus : — " So may'st thou live, O little fish, And if some rascal for a dish Through gluttony, vile sin ! Attempt, the wretch, to pull thee out, God lend ihee strength, thou little trout, To pull the rascal in ! " It is illogical, I know, yet while thirsting for the blood of the first trout of the season, I run over these lines to myself and fancy I enter into the spirit of them ; I know it is a real pleasure to re- consign to life and freedom those diminutive fry who are ever most ready to rise to one's fly, and are yet too small for even the brook trout angler's creel. But I am wandering from my purpose, and prosing sadly, when it was my intent by this time to be well on my way in describing an early day's trout-fishing ; no mean pastime, as those who know will bear testimony, though at the end of the day a dozen or more of silver trout will scarce turn the scale at 4lbs. March fishing, after all, has its compensations ; winds may be cold and skies bleak, there may be little temptation to linger over 13 174