given. True, the casualties of wind and weather do, must, and will prevail as a great discouragement to heavy and general betting upon wager sailing; but the passion for such speculation has become so prepense and perverse, that peradventure it will be found the mere peril of the investment shall form an especial item of its popularity. These will wriggle into matches, with money given, and but nominal fees for entrance demanded-wily sharks-no one will know how or whence. Some accident-it is " a world of slippery turns "—will assist them to a shipwrecked yachtsman, with a clipper that must be negotiated under the nose. Round the coast, here and there, a few hundreds may be got on, and pilots" to make things pleasant," and rigging that wont stand, and a bowsprit or a boom that will " go, can bring it off......Mark! the season dawns, and there assuredly is "something looming in the future" another " yarn" will more unfold. There's a weather-eye open that won't wink, and a "sweet little cherub smiling aloft" on the bright look-out, in the possible petrel of these presents......

AU REVOIR !

COCHIN CHINA FOWL (BUFFS).

PRIZE BIRDS, THE PROPERTY OF THOMAS STURGEON, ESQ., MANOR HOUSE, GRAYS, ESSEX.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY HARRISON WEIR.

We are nothing without we are in the fashion. Uncle Tom and the Cochins have had, by long odds, the best of it lately, and we reverence them accordingly. It would be difficult here to pay our tribute to the black gentleman, while our way with the buff is much plainer sailing. The rural and the sporting have always, of a necessity, gone hand in hand: a man who keeps a horse is pretty certain to keep a chicken or two; and if he may not know quite as much about the one as the other, "the Missis can generally help him out. Consideration for the ladies is surely argument enough, and so in we go for the Cochin Chinas.

The birds in our print are all portraits, and all winners. The cock, "Patriarch," is very celebrated, having run away with most of the grand stakes and plates at Birmingham-the very Newmarket of the time for this kind of sport. The hen birds, we believe, have also been first and primest there, as well as very successful at more provincial meetings.

Mr. Sturgeon's name is as much identified with the best sorts of Cochin fowl, as Mr. Graham's with greyhounds, or Mr. Webb's with southdowns. His birds have always, and deservedly, commanded high prices. It is said that he lately refused a couple of thousand for Old Patriarch, but we don't vouch for this.