IN THE OFF-SEASON 



There are some very real, if subsidiary, 

 pleasures always reserved for the average 

 huntinsr man at a time of vear wlien the 

 exio-encies of the season forbid his indulofence 

 in the pleasures of the chase, and amongst 

 them may certainly be reckoned the acquisi- 

 tion of hunters for the next campaign. An 

 amusinc^ volume mio;ht be written of the 

 various ways in which we often become 

 possessed of horses — good, bad, and indif- 

 ferent — which we afterwards turn, or try to 

 turn, to good account in the hunting-field. 

 The man whose establishment is laro;e enough 

 to permit of his buying several young animals, 

 and then, according to how they shape, either 

 hunting them or promptly relegating them to 

 the shafts, is always an individual to be envied. 



