quirrel without the slightest embarrassment, and you could
wake him up suddenly out of a profound slumber and ascertain from him
exactly what the best method is for draping a frog over a pickerel hook
so as to produce the best and most pleasing effects. Such is the
description of a man who, by his own unaided exertions, has risen to the
proud position of earth-stopper on my estate.

He is ignorant of the care of wild game, however, and says he has never
preserved any. We want to know whether it would be best to sprinkle our
fox with camphor and put him down cellar or let him run in the henhouse
during the winter.

Would your readers please say, also, if any of them have had any
experience in fox-hunting, what is the best treatment for a horse which
has injured himself on a barbed-wire fence while in rapid pursuit of the
fox? I have a fine fox-hunter that I bought two years ago from a
milk-man. This horse was quite high-spirited, and while the hounds were
in full cry one day I had to take a barbed-wire fence with him. This
horse, which I call Isosceles, because he is one kind of a triangle,
went over the fence in such a manner as to catch the pit of his stomach
on the barbed wire and expose his interior department and its methods
to the casual spectator. We put back all the stomachs we thought he was
entitled to, but he has not done well since that, and I have often
thought that possibly we did not succeed in returning all his works. How
many stomachs has the adult horse? I am utterly and sadly ignorant in
these matters and I yearn for light.

I certainly favor a more thorough knowledge of animal anatomy on the
part of our school-children.

Every child should know how many stomachs, bowels and gizzards there are
in the fully equipped cow or horse. Nothing is more embarrassing to the
true sportsman than to see his favorite horse ripped open by a
barbed-wire fence while in full chase, and then not know which digestive
organ should go back first, or when they have all been replaced.

So far as Isosceles is concerned, I remember thinking at the time that
we must have put back inside of his system about twice as much digestive
apparatus as he had before, as my earth-stopper said that we had given
that horse enough for a four-horse team, and yet he is ill.

I would like to hear from any of the fox-hunters in Cook county who may
have had a similar experience.

[Illustration]

BILL NYE ATTENDS BOOTH'S "HAMLET."