a national establishment. What, too, could they want buying an old horse like Hetman Platoff, whose stud character was anything but first rate? This year the young stock was not in the "butter" state, but had only been brought up six weeks. Sir Tatton's young Daniel O'Rourke's were very nice as a lot, and the last sight I saw at the station was their rare old owner, standing waiting for the Malton train, and looking as fresh as the freshest of them. And so ended our York visit.

At Egham, a daughter of Chatham, for a wonder, got two miles and a distance gallantly in the Stakes; George Whitehouse had his first mount of this season-(When is Marlow to re-appear?)-and an old yearling pet of ours, Jessie by Slane, won her maiden race. Radcliffe was remarkable for its small fields, and the luck of Hesperithusa (h.b.). Stockton was up to its usual good mark, and El-Hakim showed that he was no unworthy winner of the Ebor. At Ipswich, Oakball rather shook the belief which many have entertained, that he cannot get more than a mile and a-quarter; and Cotswold, who was the hunter beau ideal of the Derby starters in '56, as Oakball was in '57, showed that good make must be served some time, by the style in which he ran Fishman home for the Plate. People are wondering what the clerks-of-the-course will find to talk about at Doncaster, as they have virtually no power at a race meeting to do more than manage the details. Where will they get to, if they wander off into debate, by the light of such a vague Will-o'the Wisp as Lord Derby's letter, and go into committee about the moral heinousness of got-up trotting-matches and loaded dice, which have as much to do with racing as Newmarket Heath has with the " dreary 'possum swamp." If they obey the invitation of Mr. Daley to talk over blacklegs between his songs, at The Black Boy, they had better consider the subject of P.P. betting, and whether the system should not be abolished for every race whatsoever, except the St. Leger, Derby, and Oaks.

MR. THOMAS KIRBY, OF YORK.

ENGRAVED BY HUNT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BROWN, OF YORK.

This celebrated old sportsman, whose name has for nearly sixty years been so inseparably connected with English blood stock, was born at Osbaldwick, near York, in the August of 1770. As he was horn and brought up a Catholic, the parish register contains no entry of his birth, and, owing to the lapse of years, he has forgotten the exact date. From his very boyhood, "the current of his being set to" horses, and when he was barely 21, he made his first voyage to Russia in charge of a cargo of them, and entered the service of Count Poltrowsky, who had upwards of 100 brood mares in his paddocks. For a long series of years his life consisted in perpetual Russian voyages, sometimes twice a summer, and occasionally with two shiploads of horses. His adventures in this land of ice and snow have, however, been so fully given in The Post and The Paddock, along

*Hunting Edition. Piper and Co.

with other incidents in his interesting career, that we have but little to add on that head. His two sons as well as himself had a very narrow escape from being "washed away in the flood" at St. Petersburgh, on one occasion, when every horse but one in his stable perished, and that was floated into a sort of garret, from whence its exit was of the most precarious kind. So great was the favour with which the Grand Dukes regarded him, that one of them entrusted him to smuggle over some English porter, and he was wont to carry it by a bottle at a time to the palace, when he went ostensibly to chat with them about horses. On one occasion the cork came out with a rush, and if the sentinel had not good-naturedly accepted his explanation, as to its being "frisky beer," he would, as the Grand Duke laughingly told him, have been sent off for a certainty to Siberia, for a season's wholesome meditation on "Barclay and Perkins entire."

His racing career commenced, according to the calendar, in 1804; and on August 29th he won his maiden race, a £50 plate, in four mile heats, at Chesterfield, with Primrose by Beningborough. In 1810 he won no less than eight times with Royal Prince, and four years afterwards brought out his young Orvilles, with no very great success; 1820-16, was the era of his Woodpecker Lass, Shadow, and Kutusoff, the latter of whom was an immense favourite with Sir Tatton, who would go any distance for the pleasure of a mount on him. In 1821 no less than eight horses were carrying his "chocolate and white cap," but it was his maxim to sell whenever he had the chance, and hence he did not stick to them long. Orator, in 1823, was a successful horse for him, and in 1833 he scored his principal Newmarket victory, with Dinah, who received 9lbs. from Oxygen, in the Oatlands. St. Giles, whom he purchased for 1,000 guineas, and sold for the same to the Americans, did him very little good in the racing way, and the same may be said of Lallah Rookh, who was soon sent off to Russia with Remedy. Kingston Robin, and Lanercost were his last, and the performance of the mighty brown in the Chester Cup of 1842, when he ran second, giving 51lbs. to the four year old Alice Hawthorne, and 18lbs. to Vulcan, is one of the finest on record. Besides, his racing exploits, Mr. Kirby was once successfully engaged along with the present Lord Eglinton's father, in the best trotting match that ever came off in Scotland.

Orville was the first blood horse he ever purchased, 2,000 gs. being the price, and he proved a most successful venture. Lottery, whom he sold for £1,600, to go to France, was another immense favourite, and out of his love for the blood he backed Chorister at 20 to 1 for the St. Leger, and won £1,700. On one occasion he lost nearly as much, but betting was not much to his fancy. Bourbon also came

into his hands from Lord George Cavendish, for 1,100 gs., Brutandorf for 500 gs., Muley Moloch for 1,500 gs., General Chasse for 2,250 gs., Van Tromp for 2,000 gs., and Lanercost 3,000 gs. Otterington's price was 800 gs., and he put him by for a year, and then finding his form was gone, sold him to Lord Jersey and Sir John Shelley, in whose stable he broke his thigh. He also purchased Phoenix from his lordship, and sold him to Mr. Ferguson, of Harker Lodge, near Carlisle; and it was also to Lord Jersey that he effected his most successful sale of a yearling by Lottery out of Tambourine for 800 gs. His prices for yearlings seldom exceeded £200,

and he generally sold the produce of his five mares at Doncaster. In his hey-day he engaged them pretty deeply, but he was very much sickened of breeding for the turf by the difficulties he encountered in making the vendees pay up the forfeits if the purchases turned out badly, or the contingencies when they won. Hernandez, whom he sold into France with Lanercost, was his last blood-sire purchase. For nearly 60 years Mr. Kirby has hardly failed to attend the York and Doncaster Meetings, but for seven or eight years past he has ceased his Doncaster visits, and this year he felt himself too unwell either to drive on to Knavesmire or to be present at the sale of Sir Tatton's yearlings. He has, we regret to say, been for some time in a very failing state of health, but increasing weakness has not impaired his wonderful memory one whit; and when Sir Tatton or "Sim," or any of his other friends call in, the slightest racing allusion does not fail to kindle up all his fondness for old times, and the remoter the event the keener his remembrance. Two sons by his first marriage are still living, and about fourteen or fifteen years ago he married the widow of Mr. Sykes, the well-known trainer.

We are justified in saying on the highest authority, that the picture is a most faithful representation of the rare old Yorkshire worthy, and it derives additional value from the fact, that though he loved to have paintings of all his great horses, he never had any portrait taken of himself before. Hence it is no small source of pleasure to us that we should have been kindly permitted to preserve the well-known lineaments of one, who has earned through a long and arduous life the uniform respect and friendship of all, from the Russian throne to the English cottage, with whom his lot has been cast.

SEA-FOWL SHOOTING ON THE WELSH COAST.

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself has said,

This is my own, my native land?"

Some few years ago, I formed one of a merry party assembled, in the early part of the sunny month of June, at the Commercial Hotel in the renowned city of St. David's. Now I am ready to admit that "The Commercial" is a strange sign for an inn in a cathedral town to adopt; but I fear that at St. David's the secular element has overcome the ecclesiastical, and so "The Mitre" has had to succumb to its more powerful rival. The object of our visit was two-fold: first, to explore the cathedral and its ancient ruins; and, secondly, to enjoy the magnificent wild scenery with which the neighbourhood abounds, and to amuse ourselves with a few days' sea-fowl shooting. Now, as St. David is inseparably connected with every idea of Wales and Welshmen, it will be well to inquire into the origin of our patron

saint. He was, I am proud to say, the son of a mighty hunter named Sannde, who some years ago hunted and fished on the banks of the Teify, and was probably the original master of the Tei fyside Hounds. This Sannde, during a little sporting excursion made into the west of Pembrokeshire, met with a fair lady named "Non," whom he eventually married, and from their union our patron saint sprang. An awful thunderstorm which happened about, and is said to have accelerated the time of his birth, portended his future greatness. However, he did not take kindly to field sports, but preferred the monk's cowl, and soon, from his piety and goodness, became bishop of the diocese, which has since borne his name.

Having given a short history of the patron saint of Wales, I shall now try and give a description of the wild scenery which surrounds his city; I feel that I need not offer any apology for doing so, as every true sportsman is an admirer of Nature. I cannot, however, hope to convey an adequate idea of the wild grandeur of the coast; but having spent many of the happy days of boyhood in scrambling among its cliffs, and having seen it both in summer (when scarcely a ripple disturbed the still surface of the sea) and in winter (when the north-westerly gales hurled the huge waves against the bold headlands, sending up jets of silvery spray, in comparison to which the most beautiful artificial fountains would appear but poor and tame), I feel I should be acting as an undutiful child were I not to make the attempt.

Approaching St. David's from Haverfordwest, St. Bride's Bay, with the picturesque islands of Skomer and Skolkam, lies to the south; to the southwest the peaks of Ramsey Island (of which I shall speak at some length presently) form the most prominent features; to the northward the rugged crags of Penberry and Carn Llidi rise abruptly from the plain, their bases on one side being washed by the sca; and far away to the north-east the undulating range of Preselly stands out against the sky. The country around is rather flat, and the traveller will in vain look for any timber, or even a hedge-row. There is a large quantity of low marshy ground, which in hard weather affords capital snipe-shooting; and also some large shallow pools, which at times abound in wild fowl; the principal of them is called the Dowrog. A little brook, the Alan, which runs through the city, also takes its rise there. The trout in it, though not very plentiful, are particularly fine, and cut quite pink. I have, too, enjoyed more than one day's sport, otter-hunting in its waters, and remember running an old dog-otter up the whole course of the stream, eventually killing him in the pool itself. The monotony of the landscape is, however, relieved by numerous masses of trap rock, which rise abruptly from the plain, and are piled into fantastic groups. The country, although apparently barren and stony, produces most wonderful crops of barley; for which, indeed, it was celebrated as long ago as the sixteenth century. The town itself is a long straggling place, with some curious remains of ancient domestic architecture.

I have, I fear, dwelt too long on "scenes to memory dear," and my readers will begin to imagine that I am writing for an Archæological, not a Sporting Review. So I must now ask them to take me as their guide; and having hired an " 'inside car," we will make a start for