BOOKS FOR OUT OF DOORS. 
93 
survey the great fence of thorn in front of you, so big and thick that a dozen or so 
of stunted oaks and hollies are almost lost in it, while not a speck of sky shows 
through till ten feet from the ground. A white butterfly, the last of the year, 
comes dancing down the stubble, settles on the fence, uneasily flickers over the 
top, and disappears. Aimlessly you push the safety bolt of your gun up and down 
as the barrels lie at ease in the palm of your left hand, and lazily you wonder 
whether that bit of bright red down the fence is an autumn leaf, or a bit of cloth, 
or what ; and then whetheri the birds will come to the right or left of the big 
holly, or over the tall spray of briar which sticks up, still bearing one bright 
golden leaf, just where the butterfly disappeared ! And the butterfly takes you 
back to the summer, and you dream for a spell.” 
And then the shooter loses himself for a space in reminiscences]which ever come 
to while away the time, whether we wait for the driven birds, or, in more humble 
sport, for the wood-pigeons to come home to roost in the fir spinney while the 
freezing wind soughs and swishes in spruce and larch top, or motionless with wet 
feet and numbed bodies in the bleak flooded meadows at nightfall, wc keep 
(despite our dream) our ears alert to catch the whe-whe-whe of wings, or the 
broken quack-ack-ak of the mallard which shall announce the “ flighting” of the 
ducks. 
Having first shot our partridges, the natural sequence of events is that we 
should proceed to cook them, and if we do not know how to do so, and how to 
do it to the best advantage after reading the third portion of this volume, it will 
not be Mr. Saintsbury’s fault. Few will combat his conclusion that the best way 
to treat young, plump, properly-kept birds, “ uncontaminated with red-leggism,” 
is to roast them in front of the fire. But for those who are aweary of this primary 
form of cookery, as well as for those who have on their hands old birds, or birds 
falling short of perfection in quality and condition, a number of most useful 
recipes for rendering them delicious are given. One of the best of the “secon- 
dary” forms of cooking is the old English partridge pudding, and the author 
reminds us that the meat pudding of all kinds is “ intensely English, a thing not 
understanded of the benighted foreigner.” The whole essay is charmingly written. 
Of the illustrations (which are all gems in their way) we should incline to give 
the palm (among those of the bird itself) to the cock in “ Courting,” and the 
bird in the left foreground of “ Hard Times.” The belly of “ the towered bird ” 
strikes us as too fluffy. 
O. V. Aplin. 
BOOKS FOR OUT OF DOORS. 
Several books about things out-of-doors, which came at a time when there 
was not much to be seen in the woods and fields, have been through the force 
of circumstances delayed until we are able to compare the printed accounts with 
the things described. Let us see whether the books lose by the comparison. 
Certainly this is not the case with anything which the “ Son of the Marshes ” 
writes. His last book With the Woodlanders and by the Tide (Blackwood & 
Son, 6s.), edited as usual by Mrs. Owen, who has done so much towards draw- 
ing Mr. Denham Jordan from his obscurity at Leatherhead, has lost little of the 
freshness which marked his first literary venture. He still represents Richard 
Jefferies more truly than any other writer, and the resemblance extends to the 
rapidity with which the volumes of his essays succeed one another. It seems 
captious to say anything disparaging of a fertility which keeps the nature-loving 
public supplied with the reading which it loves ; and yet we feel that both Mr. 
Jordan and his prototype fail to advance, even though they do not deteriorate. 
Whether a large amount of good work is more desirable than a smaller quantity 
of higher excellence, is open to discussion ; meanwhile we may accept thankfully 
what this genuine naturalist offers. 
The sketch of “The Woodlanders,” which stands first in this volume, is 
no unworthy pendant to Mr. Hardy’s story with the same name. Mr. Jordan’s 
