692 



THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



black with them. We called in the aid 

 of a number of local sportsmen, who shot 

 large numbers, and the destructive animals 

 were all killed or flew away in about a 

 week from the first appearance of the 

 swarm. It is many years since the 

 Gardens were visited by a plague of these 

 animals. 



Correspondence. — Letters registered 

 from 1st January to 31st December, 1900, 



4,554, being 716 fewer than during the 

 corresponding period of 1899. Letters 

 despatched from 1st January to 3 1st 

 December, 1900, 3,200, being 2,030 fewer 

 than during the corresponding period of 

 1899. I believe that my absence from 

 New South Wales is mainly responsible 

 for this great falling off in letters to 

 correspondents. 



"/I Smuggling Adventure,'^ 



By Hippias. 



I THINK it was in the summer of 

 1813 that I found myself in a little 

 cottage on the seaside, with my eldest 

 sister for company, my dog " Major" for 

 amusement, and my books for work. I 

 was rather behindhand with the latter, 

 and had a spell of hard reading to do 

 before going up for my degree. It was 

 really two cottages that we occupied, each 

 containing a room above and below, the 

 doors of each opening upon a grass plot 

 abutting on the road from Torcross to 

 Kingsbridge. Beyond the road lay the 

 reed-embedded waters of Slapton Lea, a 

 kind of mere, into which more than One 

 inland brook discharged itself, but which 

 had no visible outlet, its waters percola- 

 ting through the sand and shingle (^which 

 rose several feet above its surface), and 

 finding their way unseen to the sea. At 

 one point, indeed, the distance between 

 salt water and fresh was so small that in 

 high spring tides and under the pressure 

 of a strong easterly gale the waves had 

 been known to sweep over the sandy 

 barrier and invade the placid lea, bearing 

 destruction to thousands of roach, perch, 

 and pike, and depositing shoals of sea fish 

 in their stead. Such an irruption had 

 taken place within the memory of some 

 of the villagers, who had lound great use 

 for their nets after the subsidence of the 

 storm. I have never heard that it has 

 been repeated, and long before my visit 

 . nature had lepa red all damages, and had 

 restocked the iea with its original inhaln- 

 lants — pike of large size and line condition 

 figuring, not infrequently, in the record 

 of a day's sport on its waters. 



This remarkable lake or lagoon extended 

 to a length of two or three miles along the 

 inner side of the beach, and had a width 

 of from a quarter to half a mile. I use the 

 past tense, as I know nothing of its pre- 

 sent state. It was overgrown by enormous 

 beds of reeds, in which moorfowl, water- 

 hens, and coots abounded, and in which, 

 at certain seasons of the year starlings 

 literally swarmed. I have known sixty 

 of tliese birds killed at a single shot. Snipe, 

 too, for some days after their arrival at, and 

 previous to their departure from, the 

 shore, chose the reeds of the lea as a con- 

 venient resting place ; as many as twenty 

 couple have fallen to the discharge of one 

 barrel. I see that Daniel, in his " Rural 

 Sports," ascribes half that number to the 

 Duke of Marlborough's keeper, but does 

 not give the locale. I am well assured, 

 however, that the number here given is 

 no exaggeration. 1 had full permission 

 from the owner, Sir Kobert Newman, of 

 Mamhead, to shoot and fish on the lea, and 

 had a boat at my disposal. The reader 

 may imagine that, after devoting four or 

 five hours to Aristotle and Thucydides, 

 my time would be very pleasantly filled 

 up. 



There were no trout in the lea ; but 

 the roach used to play on the surface like 

 a " schule " of mackerel, and i often 

 hooked three, and sometimes four, at a 

 cast, using thi'ee droppers in addition lo the 

 stretcher. I U;ed to set half-a-dozen 

 trimmers in dilferent places, and it was 

 great fun hunting them up and down the 

 lake in a boat; but the pike is not a 

 summer fish, and had they not been 



