ai\§ilT 



O POUR-LEGGED creature lias ever perhaps been such 

 ' ** a bone of contention as our familiar friend the coney. 

 Condemnation dire and strong has been hurled at his head 

 on aU sides. Earmers have got red in the face thousands 

 and thousands of times ; newspapers have condemned the 

 coney in good printer's ink, and not unfrequently indif- 

 ferent composition and worse sense, hundreds upon hundreds of 

 times. Popularity-hunting toad-eating Members of Parliament 

 have made forcibly feeble speeches about him, till it is a wonder he 

 dares to show his face in the light of day at all; but somehow he 

 contrives to live and thrive through it all, and his body year by year 

 increases in demand, so that he will soon, at the rate the price thereof 

 rises, cease to be the food of the poor; while his skin is held in such 

 estimation by the furriers, that it has of late years doubled and trebled 

 its value, "What the furriers do with it, and what they do or do not 

 make of it, is only known to themselves. He's a merry little chap too, 

 and capital fun at times ; for, though I hate shooting a great lumbering 

 stupid hare, that screeches like an infant when you draw on him, I 

 must say I like a clever little coney who dodges well and dies game, 



