292 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



During the months when the partridge and pheasant- 

 shooting is nearly over, and the ground is covered with con- 

 tinual frost, snow, and ice, the hare battues commence in 

 Germany. I can only compare them to the periodical drag- 

 ging of productive fish-ponds, for in this chasse profit is 

 considered quite as much as pleasure. It is by this that the 

 proprietors of the soil, or the renters of manors, make a 

 revenue of their game ; and this season of the year unites 

 two advantages, being the least injurious to the reproduction 

 of the species, and the best opportunity for disposing of it 

 to the dealers, who (as it can be kept in a state of preserva- 

 tion for a long time) will give more for it than at any other 

 period. 



These battues are of two kinds; one in the woods, and 

 the other, and most important, on the plains. 



They are conducted in various ways ; sometimes in the 

 usual manner, the shooters on one side and the beaters 

 advancing towards them on the other ; sometimes by a 

 peculiar mode called kesseltreiben, from kessel (a boiler) and 



treiben (to track), or a circular battue, and as to this 



but in place of explaining it I shall rather describe one in 

 which I took a part, and as they all resemble each other in 

 the form, and only differ in the results, I shall take the first 

 at which I was present, adding by way of parenthesis, ex uno 

 disce omnes, 



It was about the middle of December a slight coating 

 of snow, avant courier of a hard and severe winter, covered 

 the roofs of Berlin and the surrounding country I received 

 a shooting invitation from a celebrated artist, a native of 

 that city. The rendezvous was at the terminus of one of 

 the five or six railways that run in all directions around the 

 capital of Prussia. Our short journey was completed in a 

 sufficiently short time to bring us to our ground just as the 

 sluggish winter sun was appearing above the horizon. We did 



