the month of June, we may briefly mention a most important occupation which commences on the first of the month, and is most assiduously practised until the 1st February, one month more having been recently added to the legal time of fishing, which formerly terminated on the 1st January. We allude to the herring fishing on Loch Fyne, in Argyleshire, and other parts of the west coast of Scotland. The village of our present residence has for some time past presented a busy and interesting scene. The entire population being almost wholly employed in fishing, all the necessary preliminaries have been vigorously carried out, including painting, tarring, and repairing the smacks, barking nets and sails, and waterproofing coats and trousers with oil and tar to protect the man from many a pelting rain during their nocturnal fishings. Few that have not resided in a fishing village can form an adequate idea of the labour and trouble connected with the preparation and care of the nccessary fishing gear, which has this season been much increased by the continued rain and unusually long track of bad weather. This has interfered with the painting and tarring of the boats, as well as the drying of the nets, which in many instances were no sooner carefully hung up by one man, than it was necessary for them to be removed by another, in consequence of a sudden gale of wind, by which they are so frequently damaged. With regard to the price of a herring smack, the following statement, we think, will be found pretty accurate : Prime cost of the hull of a large smack, together with rigging, anchors, &c., &c., £120; nets, &c, &c., £140. Smaller smacks, independent of nets, cost £80, and so forth, according to size. A large smack carries twenty-four barrels of nets, each barrel containing one hundred yards of net. These, on being connected together, form what is termed a train of nets, amounting in length to 2,400 yards of net, which, on being attached to the ropes and brought into use, loses about a third of its length, leaving the absolute extent of the train about one mile in length. The nets alone, without ropes, &c., cost about £4 16s. per barrel; but the ropes, bladders, &c., and expense of barking bring each barrel to £6. Small smacks commonly use fourteen barrels of nets to a train, and some only ten. The value of a barrel of herrings varies from £1 to £2 and upwards, and the amount of herrings captured in a night also varies most considerably. The take of herrings last year was very considerable for a certain period, but not for such long duration as the previous season. In a few weeks last year, however, the proceeds arising from the herrings taken in the Kyles of Bute alone amounted to about £45,000; more than that accruing for the whole year from the land of the whole of Bute. In Kames Bay, at Port Bannatyne, in the island, three hundred barrels of herrings were taken at a single haul.

With regard to the modus operandi, we need scarcely say that her ring fishing is entirely carried on by night, the method adopted being to lower the sails of the smack, and in very stormy weather the mast also, and to allow her to drift of her own accord, without using the helm, which she will not do to a greater extent than a mile or two in a night, in consequence of the length of net attached to her. The common herring net of the proper and legal sized mesh is frequently used in trawling; while the regular trawl net, when purposely made or ordered, is made smaller in the mesh, for the following reason: The proper net

is constructed with a mesh large enough to admit herrings of a fair size to enter it, when they are unable to return in consequence of being caught by their gills. The trawl net is merely intended to catch the herrings and turn them out wholesale, as when a net is full of herrings, if they become fixed by the gills, it is necessary to extricate each fish singly from the mesh before the net can be used again, which is a most tedious process. The trawl net, which is illegal, captures fish of all kinds and sizes.

In the first instance the principal portion of the smacks proceed to Stornoway, on the coast of the Island of Lewis, where the herring fishing used formerly to commence on the first of May; but in consequence of the fishermen getting so little remuneration for their trouble after that date, the close time for all the fisheries north of the Mull of Cantire has been abolished, while it is still in force on Loch Fyne, which includes Loch Striven, Loch Ridden, the Kyles of Bute, and indeed the fishing generally connected with the Firth of Clyde. At the expiration of about six weeks, the larger smacks proceed from Stornoway to the fishing on the Irish coast, while the smaller ones return for the Loch Fyne fishing. The coast of the Island of Lewis is frequently a very rough and wild one, quite as much so as that of Ireland, but considered safer for the herring smacks in consequence of lying less in the track of vessels. We may observe that when the wind is easterly, there is a heavy sea off Stornoway and other parts of the north-west coast. Space now warns us to conclude our observations on a few of the various subjects connected with the month of June.

THE GOVERNMENT BREEDING-STUDS IN SWEDEN.

Although the severity of the climate of Sweden might reasonably lead to the supposition that the horse in his wild state, as known in ancient times to the nomadic hordes of Central and Eastern Europe, was not then indigenous also, to the Scandinavian soil; yet, surpassing even their neighbours the Danes in their pretension to a fabulous antiquity in all things, there are many Swedes who, claiming a Gothic origin for everything in the world, maintain that in the remotest times a primitive race of horses indigenous to the soil of Sweden roamed in a state of freedom the provinces adjacent to the south-western coast of the kingdom.

Be this as it may, there are many cogent reasons to doubt that this so-called "primitive indigenous race of Swedish horses" were, either in race, size, or characteristics, identical with the wild horse of the Sarmatian and Scythian Steppes, though doubtless, deriving therefrom, at a much later period of the gothic settlements on the northern shores of the Baltic.

In the present day, we are generally too well acquainted with the deterioration, both of horses, horned-cattle, and domestic animals, after a few generations, when transferred to high latitudes; where the influences of a rigorous climate, the unfavourable topographical features of the country, and a concurrent scarcity of pasture and provender for

many months throughout the year, effect gradually, but inevitably, a physical metamorphosis in their descendants, which in course of time exhibit few or no indications of the race from which they derived.

In a country, therefore, in which a French ambassador, on being asked after a residence of three years in Stockholm, his opinion of the climate, replied in raillery, that it was at least a very reliable one, for there were only nine months' winter and all the rest summer," it is somewhat singular that people are yet to be met with, entertaining notions so erroneous respecting the former size and qualities of the primitive horses of the province of Scania; a subject on which, with the evidences above adverted to, constantly reproduced before their eyes, after a lapse of years, even in those parts of Sweden where the most frequent recourse was had to fresh importations for the maintenance of a breed of horses serviceable for the saddle, carriage, draught, and husbandry, the more enlightened classes of their countrymen had long since rejected all traditional belief.

In fact, no confirmation greater, of the flimsy reliance to be placed on such ultra-Gothic pretensions, can be adduced than that of the frequent attention directed by several of the Kings of Sweden, anterior even to Gustavus Adolphus, to the establishment of breeding studs, maintained at the expense of the State, both for the purpose of keeping up a better standard of size and strength in the horses used for husbandry, and the yet more cogent one of mounting the Swedish regiments of cavalry, which in the frequent wars with the Poles and Russians suffered defeat so constantly from the well-mounted light cavalry of their opponents.

There are three Royal studs for the propagation and improvement of the breed of horses in Sweden-Strömsholm, Flyinge, and Ottenby.

The breeding stud of Strömsholm is situated on the shore of the large lake of Mælar, about twelve Swedish miles to the west of Stockholm, in a very picturesque country, the soil of which is covered in early summer with a somewhat luxuriant vegetation. This breeding stud takes its name from a Royal castle, situate at no great distance from it. It consists of forty brood mares, and their descendants up to the age of three and four years, and of fifty stallions.

The stud of Flyinge is in the Province of Scania, the most southern part of Sweden, one Swedish mile from Lund, the second Universitycity of the kingdom, and about a mile and a-half to the east of Malmæ, a sea-port town separated from Copenhagen by the Straits of Oresund, which are here about four German miles across. The whole of this part of the country is an uninterrupted plain, and the most fertile in Sweden.

For several years past the stud at Flyinge comprised as many as fifty stallions-a number which previously had been more restrictedwith from twenty to thirty mares. But in pursuance of a new measure which has been determined on, the stud here was to be reduced to a less number of stallions, and a corresponding number of mares of good breed, and appropriated more to the rearing and training of colts.

The Ottenby breeding stud is situated at the southern point of the Island of Eland (Anglice Island-land) in the Baltic; an insulated tract of land, some fourteen Swedish miles in length, and about halfa-mile in breadth, stretching north and south along the eastern coast of

the main land, and distant but half-a-league from the Province of Smaland, with here and there some slight differences, more or less. Between Smaland and Eland is the Strait of Kalmare, so frequently cited in the history of the wars between Sweden and Denmark, in the middle ages. The soil of this island consists of a layer of earth deposited through long ages by the waves of the Baltic upon a basis of calcareous rock. The spot whereon the breeding stud of Ottenby rises is little above the level of the sea. The island is remarkable for its exceeding richness in plants and the extensive beds of wild flowers laid out as it were by the hand of Nature.

This island was formerly the native home of a diminutive race of wild horses, similar in all respects to that of the ponies of the Shetland Islands; and there is very little doubt they were the acclimatised and dwarfed descendants of the race of horses introduced at a very remote period by the Goth settlers from the southern regions of the Baltic coast. At the commencement of the present century herds of these small horses were yet found living here in a state of freedom; but hunted down and caught with an improvident rapacity, for transport to the mainland, they have since almost wholly disappeared from Eland. There are no possible means of establishing that this small race of horses was primitively indigenous to the soil of this island, or whether it had been transported thither, for there is no tradition existing in regard to their origin. On the mainland of Sweden these little horses never had any other denomination than that of Elanningar-that is, natives of the island. In Eland itself they are called by no other name than Kungshaster, an expression answering to that of King's horses. In comparison to their size they are endowed with great strength, are extremely spirited, and capable of enduring great fatigue; but however well fed and kindly treated, these little animals retain an instinctive love of liberty, which is insurmountable.

In the middle ages, Eland was a vast hunting park, belonging to the Crown of Sweden. On the western coast of the island, the ruins of an ancient Royal castle are still to be seen, which, to travellers crossing the Straits of Kalmare, present themselves from various points of view, under aspects not less picturesque than the most remarkable ruins on the Rhine, which they surpass in size and extent.

The breeding stud of Ottenby on this island, consists of fifty brood blood mares, the colts bred and reared at this establishment, and from ten to twelve stallions.

These three Royal breeding studs are very ancient establishments; and documents are extant, which prove that they were in a well organized condition in 1694. As regards their administration under the Crown, previous to and since that period, they have also been the object of very frequent modifications. The Ottenby stud was, so to say, suppressed even, from 1809 to 1830. The stallions, with the exception of those retained for breeding purposes at the several studs, are sent into the different provinces of Sweden, where they are stationed as Government stallions during the covering season, for the public service. At Upsal, the chief University city of Sweden, there are always six of these stationed, for the purpose of propagation, and which are there placed also by the Government, for the use of the riding schools of the University, evincing on the part of the Crown a paternal solicitude

for the educational interests, physical as well as intellectual, of the students of the chief University of the country, not unworthy of imitation in one where the revenues of the Crown are as far in excess of those in Sweden, as the amount of public good wrought out by the spirit of private and public enterprise exceeds all ever voluntarily effected by the Crown, and Government of the day.

The University has furthermore a certain number of horses which are furnished by the chief Equerry of the Riding-schools, for the use of which he receives a fixed reasonable indemnification.

Some large landed proprietors in the provinces where the cavalry are quartered, keep and furnish stallions for the breeding and supply of remounts to the regiments; in consideration for which, certain reductions are made in their favour in the imposts due by them to the Treasury : they are fifty in number.

This custom is of modern date, and has alleviated, with much more advantage both to the State and the landowners, the pressure of the imposts due by the latter to the sovereign, which in former times weighed heavily upon the generally small revenues of the Swedish nobility. In so much was this the case that their evasion, both in amount of tax and the nature of the service-dues to the crown, was a constant subject of royal complaint, and not unfrequently displayed, in the performance of the latter more especially, that jockeying and ringing the changes in horseflesh were matters well understood as far north even as Sweden. In illustration of this, and as tending to show how scarce and costly in Sweden a tolerably good horse fit for cavalry purposes was, up to the time of the great Gustavus, the nobles of all degrees, holding either ancient fiefs of the crown, or possessing lands acquired by purchase or otherwise, were required by law to furnish, according to their means, one, two, or more men, equipped and mounted on a serviceable horse or horses, to the king, to be at the place designated by royal command for the mustering of the forces, on a specified day, in default of a heavy penalty in dollars.

These requisitions, however duly complied with, were nevertheless constantly nullified in their efficiency by the most unworthy frauds on the part even of the richest and greatest landowners, who, on forwarding their contingents of men to the general musters, sent them thither mounted on good horses, as prescribed by law, but which they afterwards replaced by sorry hacks or worthless galloways.

Though the resources which we have indicated above for the general wants of the country may well appear of but little importance in the aggregate, nevertheless, for the last thirty years, the Swedish government has been enabled to remount nearly the whole of the cavalry with horses bred in the country, and at intervals only, the State has imported some remounts of foreign races. As regards riding and carriage horses of price, they are annually imported from Germany and Denmark some provinces of Sweden have recourse also to Norway for farm and draught horses, of which they have of late years introduced into that country a larger breed, and devoted more care and outlay to their propagation. In other respects, the Norwegian horses are small, and better for riding than draught. They have an easy, quick walking pace, are full of spirit, and very sure-footed. These they derive originally, no doubt, from the small Swedish horses already described. When