162 AN OCTOBEE ABROAD. 



even in the towns. I was glad also to see that the 

 British crow was not a stranger to me, and that he 

 differed from his brother on the American side of the 

 Atlantic only in being less alert and cautious, having 

 less use for these qualities. 



Now and then the train would start up some more 

 tempting game. A brace or two of partridges or a 

 covey of quails would settle down in the stubble, or a 

 cock pheasant drop head and tail and slide into the 

 copse. Rabbits also would scamper back from the 

 borders of the fields into the thickets or peep slyly 

 out, making my sportsman's fingers tingle. 



I have no doubt I should be a notorious poacher in 

 England. How could an American see so much 

 game and not wish to exterminate it entirely as he 

 does at home ? But sporting is an expensive luxury 

 here. In the first place a man pays a heavy tax on 

 his gun, nearly or quite half its value ; then he has 

 to have a license to hunt, for which he pays smartly, 

 then permission from the owner of the land upon 

 which he wishes to hunt, so that the game is hedged 

 about by a triple safeguard. 



An American, also, will be at once struck with the 

 look of greater substantiality and completeness in 

 everything he sees here. No temporizing, no make- 

 shifts, no evidence of hurry, or failure, or contract 

 work ; no wood and little paint, but plenty of iron 

 and brick and stone. This people have taken plenty 

 of time, and have built broad and deep, and placed 

 the cap-stone on. All this I had been told, but it 



