into it. In this instance the turtle was fast by only one "taza," its companion, though sent to find it, evidently failing to do so or not caring to hold on. In all cases the procedure was the same. The men told me that the fish attached themselves to any part of the turtle's body; all positions seemed alike to them, though one fish varied from another in its capacity to serve its master. I can answer for it that both those in use that morning were no sluggards. They never shirked, and seemed as keen at the end as they were in the beginning. After the third successful capture an accident befel one of them. We were fast in something which I at first thought was another turtle, until I saw the fisherman getting ready a long harpoon instead of the grapnel. This time I learnt it was a fish which the "taza" was trying to bring us, but its zeal proved its undoing, for before long the grip loosened, and when it was drawn in it was evident that our friend had had the worst of the contest. The narrow green body was scarred in three places with the marks of its opponent's teeth, and after looking at the wounds the man pronounced them likely to prove fatal. Freed from its line it was put back into the sea, and I saw it slowly swim towards the bottom, its body turning over as it went. Such faithful service had verily earned a happier end. The first turtle was con siderably larger than the other two which we caught, their measurements being 3 feet 10 inches and 4 feet in length and 2 feet 5 inches in both cases across the base of the shell. The turtles' favourite ground evidently covered only rather a small area, for the men had put out a wicker cage as a buoy to mark the spot when we first arrived, and I noticed they always paddled back to its neighbourhood before starting to fish again after our various chases had ended. The number of turtles to be seen was really remarkable; every now and again a small black head would emerge above the surface, survey the scene for a second or so, and then there would be nothing but a widening ripple. From the chart I see that we were fishing in about 6 to 10 fathoms of water. It was now midday, and as my boat had returned I got into it and started home. The sun was almost directly overhead, and its heat was like that of a scorching flame. There was no breath of wind from any quarter. from any quarter. A couple of Arab dhows in the distance lay becalmed, drifting with the current. The boat rose and fell on a surface of dazzling light. Look where one would, there was nothing for the eye to rest on; everywhere was glitter and glare, and the distant surf and the trees on the shore seemed to flicker and throb in the burning heat. Without a pilot, I thought it more prudent not to venture reef by which we had come out, and we found our way back to the landing - place by another route. on the passage through the its appearance what value, from their point of view, each fish will have. It is all a matter of degree; any "taza over 8 inches long will be serviceable, but their temperament differs. In some few cases, when the fish feels the strain of the line attached to the tail being tightened as the turtle to which it has fastened itself is being drawn in, it loosens its hold; in other cases, the action merely incites it to take a take a firmer grip. Calm weather or rough apparently makes no difference to the "taza," although the fishermen prefer the former, as it proves easier for them to manage their canoes. As long as the men know turtle exist in the piece of water they are working in, they put their fish out, and leave it to them to find exactly where the animals are. highest catch my skipper acknowledged having made in one day was ten turtle. In the evening my crew came to see me again. They said they had continued to fish until two o'clock, and had caught another turtle, but it was only a small one. That day had evidently been more fortunate than the previous ones, for then, using the same "taza," they had only been successful in one instance. The "taza," I was told, were caught on the coast at a place about seven miles away. They seemed to be scarce, and the fishermen had some difficulty in securing the supply they needed. The bait used is either a piece of fish or turtle. When they were caught the fish were placed in wicker cages submerged in the sea. "Taza" do not thrive in captivity, and refuse to eat, although every imaginable kind of food has been offered them by their captors. If VOL. CXC. NO. MCLIII. The If the supply is scarce the fishermen will go out with only one "taza," but they prefer using a couple. They like the fish to attach itself to the top of the turtle's shell, as in that case it is easier to get the grapnel into the base of the body without disturbing the "taza.' The motive that guides the latter, they say, in attaching itself to any living object is to draw blood for its own nourishment. Turtle is preferred to fish, but before the turtle comes the dugong. If there is any choice in the matter, dugong is always the first object "taza" will seek. 2 x All species of fish, shark included, seem alike to them. My informants told me that if the supply of turtle failed they caught fish with the with the "taza." ." The method was the same, except that a harpoon instead of a grapnel was used in the final act. They professed to have caught dugong to which a single "taza" had attached itself. When I expressed surprise at the comparatively small resistance which the turtles had made once the grapnel was in them, they explained that this was due to the skill of the two boys whose duty it was to hold the animals as they were being drawn into the boat: with less accomplished assistants, they said, the task would be a good deal harder. The "taza's" natural disposition seems to be that of a bully and disturber of the maritime peace. They were compared to me by an old Arab, with whom I have since discussed my experiences, as playing that part in the sea which is taken on land by the African hunting - dog. They attack their neighbours wantonly and spend their days in warfare and strife. To the best of my knowledge I am the first white man to have seen turtles caught in this manner on this coast, and no description of it, as far as I am aware, has ever been published. SPORT IN FICTION. BETWEEN the middle of August and the middle of February lies that happy time, the approach of which no veteran sportsman, unable any longer to share in its delights, can contemplate without 8 sigh reduced to visit only in memory the scenes of his former joys. Then as he leans back in his chair, when half through his bottle of La Rose, rise up before him the sights and sounds familiar to him in past years. He roams once more the heather and the stubble behind his well-beloved setters, hears again the cheery cry of "cock" from the thick of the wood, or gallops once again over the well - remembered "ridge and furrow" traces of the vanished plough on the broad pasture - fields of the Midlands. After such a reverie is it not natural that he should turn to some of those works of fiction in which sport of one kind or another fills a prominent place, and the descriptions given are often sufficiently vivid to correspond to the scenes already conjured up by memory ? The influence of manners upon literature, and of literature upon manners, is always an interesting study. They act and react upon each other. And such no doubt has been the case with fashion and fiction in the matter of fieldsports. Fox-hunting was in full swing at the end of the eighteenth century, and in one of the latest of that class of comedies, an exquisite of the period tells his valet that "one must hunt in Leicestershire ". "that is the correct thing." But it has been before pointed out that it was the long French war which-by closing the Continent against the English aristocracy, and driving them back upon such diversions as their own country afforded-really brought hunting into fashion, and taught men to find at Melton some compensation for what they had lost in Paris. But it was some time before hunting became a sufficiently prominent feature in English life to compel the novelist to take notice of it. Of the early Victorian era Bulwer and G. P. R. James were, we suppose, the two most popular novelists-and neither of them mentions fieldsports except in the most casual manner, and for the purpose of this article we may dismiss them from consideration. The shooting scenes in 'Pickwick' need hardly be mentioned. They are pure farce; and if it signified anything it might be added that the author himself evidently knew little of the matter. Novels in which sport (the word being limited through this article to field-sports) forms a conspicuous feature are of three kinds. There is first the novel in which it is introduced as an illustration of manners or customs, or serves larity of such books as 'Jorrocks's Jaunts,' 'Soapy Sponge's Sporting Tour,' and others of the same calibre, testify perhaps as strongly as the abovementioned writers to the widespread interest in field - sports which animates the British public, though they appeal to it from a different point of view. The different treatment of sport, and of hunting in particular, by Mr Surtees, compared with the pictures drawn for us in 'Digby Grand,' 'Sans Merci,' and 'Can You Forgive Her?' must of course have been visible to all who have read them. The one as a link in the chain of events through which the plot is worked out. In 'Guy Mannering' both the fox-hunt and "burning the the water" are described, because they were customs peculiar to the country and the people of whom Scott wished to draw a perfect picture. In 'Rob Roy' the hunt leads up to the visit of Diana and Frank Osbaldistone to Justice Inglewood, and helps very materially to the development of the plot. In none of the three are these scenes introduced for their own sake. But towards the end of the thirties fox hunting in England had become the class of fiction were writfashion, and an element of English social life which the novelist had to take into account. And now we come to the second class of sporting fiction, represented by such names as Whyte Melville, George Lawrence, Anthony Trollope, and, in a slighter degree perhaps, by Thackeray. These all treat field-sports as a recognised national pastime which, in fiction professing to represent English society of all grades, take their place naturally alongside of banquet and ball, the club and the messroom, the fair and the market, the garden and the farm, or whatever else helps to make up the varied round of diversions or interests familiar to all classes of our countrymen and country women. There is still a third class of sporting novelists, with whom sport is an end in itself. Perhaps we may call these the realistic school. The popu ten for sportsmen only, the other having a wider range and aiming at producing a complete reflection of rural life which shall interest the general reader and such as have no special familiarity with horse and hound, by stirring incidents and adventures intermingled with social studies displayed upon broader canvas. a There is one point, however, in which the realistic school are superior to the "impressionist," in that they always give one, or try to give one, the real thing, such as an ordinary hunting man would call an average run, and thus presenting a much more truthful picture of what actually occurs in the hunting-field than the more highly coloured and more exciting description to be found elsewhere. Writers of this school, which we have called impressionist, always feel bound to show one "the |