abits of industry. We can labor or we can let it alone.

This shows our superiority as a race. We have been that way for hundreds
of years. We could work in order to be sociable, but we would not allow
it to sap the foundations of our whole being.

I write, therefore, to learn, if possible, where I can get a good red or
gray fox that will come home nights. I had a fox last season for hunting
purposes, but he did not give satisfaction. He was constantly getting
into the pound. I do not want an animal of that kind. I want one that I
shall always know where I can put my hand upon him when I want to hunt.

Nothing can be more annoying than to be compelled to go to the pound
and redeem a fox, when a party is mounted and waiting to hunt him.

I do not care so much for the gait of a fox, whether he lopes, trots or
paces, so that his feet are sound and his wind good. I bought a
light-red fox two years ago that had given perfect satisfaction the
previous year, but when we got ready to hunt him he went lame in the off
hind foot and crawled under a hen house back of my estate, where he
remained till the hunt was over.

What I want is a young, flealess fox of the dark red or iron-gray
variety, that I can depend upon as a good roadster; one that will come
and eat out of my hand and yearn to be loved.

I would like also a tall, red horse with a sawed-off tail; one that can
jump a barbed wire fence without mussing it up with fragments of his
rider. Any one who may have such a horse or pipless fox will do well to
communicate with me in person or by letter, enclosing references. I may
be found during the summer months on my estate, spread out under a tree,
engaged in thought.

E. FITZWILLIAM NYE.

Slipperyelmhurst, Staten Island, N. Y.

[Illustration: SUTTERS CLAIM]

IMITATED.

Say! _you_ feller! _You_--
With that spade and the pick!--
What do you 'pose to do
On this side o' the crick?
Goin' to tackle this claim? Well, I reckon
You'll let up agin purty quick!
No bluff, understand,--
But the same has been tried,
And the claim never panned--
Or the fellers has lied,--
For they tell of a dozen that tried it,
And quit it most onsatisfied.

The luck's dead agin it!--
The first man I see
That stuck a pick in it
Proved _that_ thing to me,--
For he sorto took down, and got homesick,
And went back wh