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Tournaments (Account of the many accidents)

on account of the many accidents attending them, were frequently denounced by the Popes, but for all that, and in spite of the accidents and deaths, we find mention of them continually.

As we have remarked, tourneys were one of the sports included in the term tournament, and we may as well proceed to give an idea of this class of game. For illustrations of the tourney the reader must refer to the numerous manuscripts, chronicles, and histories, of which there are so many in our national collections. The MS. of Meliadus is full of pictures of tourneys, and gives us the appearance of them in the fourteenth century. Many illustrations from this MS. will be found in Cutt's Scenes from the Middle Ages, where also the student will see excellent reproductions of the warlike sports of those days. But in M. Quartrebarbe's handsome work, The Tourney Book of King Réné of Anjou, we get drawings of the whole of the incidents before and at a fifteenth century tourney.

In one of these we see the knights with gorgeous crests on their helmets and trappings on their horses, armed, as usual in this sport, with wooden maces and blunt, pointless swords. The knights are in a large pen formed by posts and rails, and separated by two cords drawn across and forming a lane in which stand the heralds and others managing the tourney. When all is ready the officials withdraw, and men placed at the ends of the lane or passage OBSOLETE SPORT] cut the ropes with axes. Immediately the two parties engage and mingle and hammer away at each other till the judge or presiding officer commands them to desist. This was evidently not done at once, for the combatants soon became excited, and only those who got the worst of it would care to discontinue. In the drawings of Jost Ammon and others we see the "admired confusion" which prevailed, and in these German pictures we observe how a public square or place was often taken up for the sport. The successful combatants afterwards received the prize from the chief lady present, and the day's amusement would end with banquets and dancing. serious Jousting, and its later form, tilting, was a more scientific and sport.

Sometimes it was performed with sharp spears, and then accidents were pretty frequent, as we see in Rouse's Life of the Earl of Warwick, where that accomplished traveller is shown driving his spear right through the body of some unknown foreign knight in honour of his own lady. touching with their spears certain shields hung up near the lists. One shield would be for sharp lances, another for lances with coronels, and so on. If a knight and his friends issued the challenge to last for so many days, then as many knights duly qualified by birth, &c., as chose would ride against the challengers, who would be called the Tenans, while the others were the Venans. Prizes would be given to the most successful.

FIG. 1.

But it was found that some riders tried unfair means to unseat their opponents, jostling them, and otherwise departing from the true sportsmanlike practice. Accordingly, in 1443, we find a new style of jousting introduced, which in some places almost entirely superseded the open running. This was the running at the tilt. The tilt was originally a stout rope with a cloth (toile, Anglice tilt) hung over it, and stretched across the lists for some ninety yards.

The two riders From the Weise König, showing how by a toy the youth of the middle ages was instructed in the sport of Jousting.

Jousting was originally carried out in a large enclosed space, the riders fully armed and protected by armour, and their horses also wearing metal body and head defences.

The two combatants rode straight at each other, and each endeavoured to dismount the other by striking him on the head or body. If the lances had blunt or rebated points, or were furnished with coronels, that is, heads with three or more short points to prevent slipping, a good blow would, if delivered straight, certainly shake, if not unseat, the person struck. If, however, the blow were not quite direct, the lance would be shivered. The terms of the challenge would decide how many courses were to be run and the nature of the weapons employed. This was generally arranged by those wishing to take part VOL. III were placed at opposite ends and at opposite sides of this toile, and then riding towards each other, each, with his left arm to the toile, endeavoured by a well-directed blow to dismount his opponent. Of course, in order to reach the other, each jouster had to place his lance on the left side of his horse's neck. It is clear that the right hand of each rider was at least three feet from the toile throughout the course, and the spear being but fourteen feet long from butt to point, it is evident that the spears were inclined at an angle of some 30° from the line of the toile. Thus no direct blow could be given, but, considering the combined weight of the two horses and their riders, a shock sufficient to break the spears, if they struck the head or body, was obtained. A rider might be knocked out of his saddle, but it was not likely, as the blow would be a very light one, and the lance would break before S the person hit would be unseated. Soon the toile was changed into a wooden barrier, and in the challenge would be noted the height it was to be. It seems to have varied from five feet to six feet, and perhaps more. Now it is evident that two men riding in opposite directions, one on each side of a six-foot wall, would not see much of each other, and so it was. In the splendid tournament roll of the first year of Henry VIII., now preserved in the Heralds' College, we can only see the head of the knight who is charging along on the other side. The chances of hitting him would be small, except for very expert jousters. Then again it was sometimes difficult to get the horses to run close alongside of the barrier, and in that case the knights would be out of reach of each other. Sometimes double lists were used, forming a narrow lane for each horse to travel along. At the Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry objected to these double lists, but on one occasion at least he had to change horses, as the one he rode would not keep to the track. Besides this difficulty, a high wind sometimes quite prevented the lance being held steady, and such was the case more than once at the Field of Cloth of Gold.

The rules for the jousters at the tilt appear in England to have been drawn up in 1466 by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.

This was the year of the challenge of the Lord Scales and the Bastard of Burgundy, though the fight only came off the next year, and in that contest no tilt was used. These rules were, with slight differences, in use for many years, and are said to have been commanded to be observed and kept by an order in the fourth year of Elizabeth, 1562-1563. Generally speaking, they were as follows:- Breaking a spear between the saddle and the fastening of the helmet to the breast-plate (for so we may interpret the charnell of the helmet)... ... ... .... ...

I point. وو Breaking a spear above this spot Breaking a spear so as to unhorse the opponent or to unarm him so that he could not run the next course ... 2 points. ... 3 forfeiture of Striking the toile or tilt once Striking the toile or tilt twice ... ... ... ... ...

But breaking a spear on the saddle caused a ... ... ... ... ... ...

I point. 2 points. 3 3 " Breaking a spear on the sight of the helmet thrice, counted towards the prize before the breaking of most spears, and striking coronel to coronel was again better, whilst unhorsing the opponent was best of all. No prize would be given to the jouster who struck a horse or a rider with his back turned, or who struck the toile or tilt thrice. [OBSOLETE SPORT Nor could a prize be won by a jouster who lost his helmet twice, except by fault of his horse. If the spear broke within a foot of the end, it only counted as a good attempt.

Now it is clear that in the later days of jousting, with a six-foot tilt, some of these conditions would never be fulfilled, as but little more than the head of the opponent could be seen or touched. And hitting the toile or tilt was a clumsy thing, like playing into the net at lawn tennis.

Of course, in the case of striking coronel to coronel, each rider was equally expert, and one may suppose points were allowed to each. Lambeth Public Libraries In the early days of jousting the ordinary armour for war was used, with the addition of the tilting helm, which, unlike the helmet, rested on and was fastened by staples and buckles to breast and back, and was large enough to allow of the head being moved inside it, as in the case of a diver's helmet.

But as time went on, it was doubtless found more convenient to have stouter and richer armour for the showy occasions of the tournament, where the blows were more deliberate than in the field, and also where there were spectators who could admire at their ease. And in Henry VIII.'s time we find that, taking into consideration the fact that the lance blows could only be received on the side next to the opponent, that is, on the left, it was thought a good idea to strengthen that side of the armour by wearing additional pieces. The helm had its air-holes only on the right side, so as to avoid any chance of the lance-point or the coronel biting on the surface of the left side, and the rivet-heads were either flush with the surface, or so rounded as not to arrest the lance-head if it struck. For the defence of the left side of the rider the volant 1 piece was devised. This protected the left side of the helmet, and just came round the front medial line, the helmet being bolted to it, and the lower part of the volant piece bolted to the top of the breast.

With this was worn sometimes a sort of shield of metal called a manteau d'armes; in other cases, as for the German jousting with sharn spears, a stout wooden shield, covered with small plates of bone, was fastened by a stout plaited thong to the breast-plate. This thong passed through the breast-plate, then through a wooden ball to keep the shield the proper distance from the body, and then through the shield itself, the two points being tied on the outside of the shield and hanging down on its face. 1 Volant is the term applied on the Continent to movable pieces.

OBSOLETE SPORT] was Yet another form of additional defence was used. This was a stout piece of metal, which stretched across the upper part of the body, turning forward on the right shoulder, but backward over the left, and reaching down the crest of the breast-plate to a point about four inches above the waist. To the upper part of this riveted the volant piece, and a bolt passing through the crest of the breast-plate near the lower part attached this grand-guard, as it was called, to the breast-plate, to the curves of which it closely conformed. On the left elbow also was fixed a pin, to which by a linch-pin could be fixed a large plate protecting the elbow and parts of the upper and fore arm. This was the real pasguard, though in modern times the name has erroneously been transferred to the upright plates springing from the pauldrons or shoulder armour, and to a certain extent protecting the sides of the neck. Below this pasguard again was worn over the left gauntlet a large manifer, or main de fer.

This was a heavy miton-shaped gauntlet with long cuff and no finger divisions.

This covered the back of the hand and forearm, and, while not fitted for holding a weapon, was quite sufficient for the rein hand. This series of additional pieces is seen in the armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, made between 1566 and 1588 (Fig. 3), and similar pieces belonging to Henry VIII. are still at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London.

Now it is evident that when the jouster had these pieces put on over his armour he was more helpless than ever. First his helmet was linched to the volant piece, which was riveted to the grand-guard in its turn bolted to the breast-plate. The rider thus had his head fixed in such a way that from his waist upward he was all one piece, and any movement to avoid an impending blow or for any other purpose was impossible. Nor could he see much-in fact, all the sight he had was through the slits in his helmet just above the volant piece. Considering this, we shall better understand the state of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, at the time of the accident described by Hall in the year 1524, when the king, having forgotten to close the vizor of a newly designed helmet, on the signal to go being given, the two jousters rushed along the course. It was too late to stop them, and Brandon shivered his lance on the brow-piece of the king's helmet.

Brandon himself said that he was not only short-sighted, but that he could not see, for "my headpiece taketh from me my sight."

There was one unwritten rule, the nonobservance of which cost Henry II. of France his life. That was that, after breaking the lance, the butt end should be cast away at once. Now, when Mongommeri, by a dexterous stroke, had shivered his lance and knocked off the king's plume of feathers, instead of casting away the stump, he rode straight on, and the splintered end of the stump, entering the sights of the king's helmet, pierced his eyes, and so led to the fatal termination.

From all this it will be seen that jousting FIG. 2.

George, Earl of Cumberland, temp. Elizabeth, in tilt-yard costume. From his portrait at Skipton, Yorks. at the tilt was a very peculiar sport. It required a good horse that would run truly along the course, and a steady hand; but there was a great deal of chance in it. If the opponent's horse swerved, however good one might be, one could not touch his rider, and one could not see enough to be able to vary by much the direction of the lance stroke. It was more a matter of the opponent riding on to the lance-head than of finding him by any movement of the lance itself.

In fact, the more one considers the conditions of jousting at the tilt, the more one is surprised that so much could be done.

The jouster could not suddenly shift the position of his lance, nor follow the rider S2 whose horse broke away from the track.

What he had to consider was, where the opponent would come into contact with his lance-head, and, of course, two good riders with steady horses might score hits each [OBSOLETE SPORT half-turn to the right, and, giving the spur at the same moment, would drive the horse alongside of the tilt before he had time to swerve off. George Peele, in his Anglorum Feriæ, describing the jousting, 1595, FIG. 3.

Armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with the Grand-guard, Pasguard, and Main de fer for the tilt. This armour, now in the Tower of London, was made 1566-1588. course, whereas the best man in the tilt-yard would fail to hit a bad rider. Pluvinel gives a hint for overcoming the unsteadiness of the horses-namely, that each rider stood at his end of the tilt, but with his back to the course; then, on the word to go, he would make his horse wheel suddenly a on one of the many Queen's days in Elizabeth's time, speaks of young Dudley, whose "armed horse made dreadful harmony grating against the rails." This may sound well in poetry, but it could hardly have been pleasant for young Dudley. Certainly some of the valiant jousters of Elizabeth's Court OBSOLETE SPORT] took all precautions not to be hurt, for we see William, Earl of Worcester, esteemed the best tilter of his day, wearing a breast and back plate, which alone weigh upwards of 40 lb. The suit is in the Tower collection, and seems more suited to keep out a musket ball than to guard the rider from a light deal lance. Such a suit would give every reason for the platform of three steps which Pluvinel tells us was erected at each end of the lists for the riders to mount their horses, after they had been armed by the armourer and his assistant. There would be no vaulting lightly into the saddle with such equipment, and it must have been more of an embarcation than a mounting.

So also when the six or more courses were over and the knight had to be got out of his armour.

Illustrating the difference between the armour for the field, called "hosting harness," and that for the tilt yard, we have an interesting account written in 1547 by Sir H. Poulet and Sir J. Harington to the Protector Somerset, of a sort of Gymkhana got up by the gentlemen of the garrison of Calais to celebrate the accession of Edward VI. to his father's throne. Of course these gentlemen had only their war armour with them in that outpost of the English on French soil, so they had to do the best they could with what they had.

The fête took place outside the town, and though the old plans of Calais show a tilt within the walls, they had for want of one outside to "run at random." Young Henry Dudley and Jerningham determined to rehearse the sport, and ran at each other in their hosting harness and with coronel staves that is, lances with coronels in place of the usual sharp steel head. At the second encounter "they met so freely that both went to the ground, their harness flying about the field and their horses astonished, but without hurt both leaped on horseback again and brake sundry staves very honestly." Of course, the cause of this disarrangement of their armour was that while the portions of suits for the tilt yard were mostly bolted together, the war armour was to a great extent connected by straps. Sully himself tells us how at the assault on Rouen, 1591, he got upset and all his armour disarranged, so that he had to withdraw to get it put in order again.

Although the word Carrousel has been in later times associated with the sport of running at the ring, it appears from the work L'Arte del Cavallo by Nicola Luigi Santa Paulina, published at Padua in 1696, that the original sport took its name from carosello, a hollow ball of chalk varying in size from a hen's egg to an apple. The persons taking part in the game were divided into two parties, each of which had a supply of these caroselli besides reserves held by attendants on foot. The sides then rode towards each other and threw them, each one guarding his head with a shield borne on the left arm. The encounters first took place by two against two, and then by squads. Paulina says this game was much played in Spain, where it was known as Alcançias, and often light canes were used for throwing instead of the chalk balls, and then it was called the Feste di Cannas.

As late as 1760 we see, in the beautifully engraved work by Johann Elias Ridinger on the Manège, a gentleman in a threecornered hat and the costume of that date exercising with a tilting lance both at Turks' heads and also at the ring.

In the Armeria at Madrid is preserved the arrangement for the ring business, and Jubinal has figured it. There is a split tube, down which slides a spring holding the ring. The compression of the tube is sufficient to keep the ring suspended at the lower end until it is forced out by being caught by the lance-point. The lance for this ring running in the Tower has a small conical button on the point so as to prevent the ring slipping off the lance after it has been taken from the tube.

Running. If we may distinguish running at an inanimate object from the same at a living person, we shall find that the former was practised at a very early date and by the humblest classes as much as, if not more than by the wealthy. Thus we have the running at the quintain fixed or swinging, and the running, if we may so call it, in boats at a water quintain. Of these sports a famous MS. of the life of Alexander the Great in the Bodleian Library dated 1344, has supplied Strutt with illustrations for his work. We see boys and youths pushing with poles, now at a fixed mark on a post, at other times at a mark on the one end of a horizontal revolving bar, at the other end of which is suspended a sandbag. In other pictures we see an ambitious youth imitating his betters, being mounted on a wooden horse which two of his companions are pulling along, while the rider poises his lance at a fixed mark. In another picture some naked lads are about to charge against a tub of water set on a post. In the water tilting the lance bearer is on a small platform rigged up on a boat propelled by four or five of his companions, and the penalty of not striking the mark is apparently that the person so failing would overbalance and fall into the water. Then, again, in another MS. at Oxford we have a sort of inverted tug of war. Two boys, instead of pulling at a rope, are endeavouring to push each other backward, each having hold of one end of a pole.

As to the use of the swinging quintain, it is difficult to see what relation it bore to the jousting or tilting, for as the blow of the counterpoise could only be avoided by a quick movement of the body, a feat quite impossible in the later days of tilting, as we have already shown, it was evidently on quite different principles from the nobler variety of the sport. Plot, in 1677, mentions that at Deddington in Oxfordshire he had seen the running at the quintain, but that it was then only "in request at marriages." From what is said of the sport, it was evidently performed on horseback.

Running at the ring was an improvement on the above exercises, and became a sport for the richer classes, who took to it very seriously. In time it became the sole surviving form of mounted exercises of this class, and we may refer now to some notices of it in history.

The earliest mention of running at the ring in Hall's chronicles is on the occasion of the Spanish ambassadors being entertained in 1509 by Henry VIII. We are told that with other sports they witnessed Running at the Ring, when Henry and six courtiers ran against seven others. Each person ran twelve courses, but the king won the prize by taking the ring five times and touching it three times. Henry, however, seems to have preferred the rougher play of jousting, and the running at the ring does not often occur in his reign-at least, Hall does not mention it.

In Elizabeth's time the sport was used, but probably more as practice for the nobler pastime of the tilt yard. With James's acces this mild exercise was more in favour than the manlier game, and in 1606, on the occasion of Christian IV. of Denmark's visit, we find the royal brothers-inlaw excelling all their competitors. In 1612 the young Prince Henry and five others ran at the ring a match for a supper, which he won, and the next year, at Somerset's wedding, the King and the bridegroom also ran. So on during James's reign on state occasions running at the ring was one of the chief items of amusement, and, as might be expected, the Prince Charles generally took the prize. Pluvinel in his great work on horsemanship deals at length with the sport and gives most minute directions for the handling of the lance.

The Lists. As to the lists where the [OBSOLETE SPORT jousting took place, this was an enclosed space of ground with posts and rails and sometimes a bank and ditch round it. The ground was hard, even, and firm, and in the preparation for the Field of Cloth of Gold Sir Nic. Vaux mentions that it will not do to scatter the earth from the enclosing ditch, over the lists, "for it will mar all the ground that none shall gallop nor runne surely upon it." Of course, the arrangements varied with circumstances, but the general idea was to have stages for the stable litter being used. Across the lists and at each end were entrances and exits for the jousters. There were also pavilions or chambers for the chief actors to prepare in, and the grand stand was richly furnished. The general shape of the lists was rectangular, but longer in breadth than in depth. At the Field of Cloth of Gold they were 150 paces long. In many towns there were places kept for the jousting, and in the Tilt yard at the back of the Horse Guards we have the survival of the name, this place being the site of the tilt yard in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

In some places we read of jousts taking place under cover, and in 1513 they were held at Lisle in a large chamber paved with black marble, the horses being shod with felt or flock (felto sive tomento) to avoid slipping. In other instances we read of stable litter being used. Across the lists, but not reaching to either side, ran the Tilt, and it is said that such a tilt still exists in Mantua. At each end of the tilt were the small platforms on which the jousters with their armourers and attendants could stand to have the finishing touches given, and the last strap or bolt arranged, and from which they got on to their horses. Representations of the tilt are to be seen in numerous manuscripts, and we may quote the fine Froissart in the British Museum, which was, however, executed some seventy or eighty years after the events therein recorded. Consequently we have the tilt shown at the joustings at St. Inglevert, though at that date, 1389, the use of this arrangement was not known. Then in Rouse's life of the Earl Warwick, which has been engraved by Strutt, in the 2nd volume of Horda, we have good contemporary illustrations, and in the College of Heralds' Tournament Roll of the Ist year of Henry VIII. we see the arrangements ve very clearly. Pluvinel and Perissem in their engravings also show the latest form of the tilt. In or near the lists would be arranged, on an artificial tree or mound, or in some such way, the shields, the touching of which by the "Venans" would FIG. 4.

From a manuscript by Sir William Gregory, Garter King at Arms, and now the property of A. Wood Acton, Esq., of Acton Scott, Salop. The manner of the Tilt, the Tourney, and the Barriers, as practised temp. Elizabeth, is well shown in this exceedingly interesting drawing. indicate the class of combat in which they wished to engage. A very good idea of the whole arrangement may be had from the large picture at Hampton Court of The Field of Cloth of Gold, in the upper corner of which we see the lists, stands, tilt trees, &c. Of course, in Germany, where these sports were very common, we find numerous illustrations by the hands of Jost Ammon, and by others, though Jost Ammon shows the jousters riding right arm and [OBSOLETE SPORT between Arras and Lens, with four jousters on each side to represent the French and Burgundians, managed to have lances gracieuses only used, and so no harm was done. St. Remy, who mentions the incident, uses the above term, but lances courtoises is also often met with.

The ladies' lance appears to have been an extra course at joustings and was run last, just as in Henry VIII.'s time, after a regular set of courses, we are often told FIG. 5.

Tilting Armour of Lance (1627), from Pluvinel's Instruction du Roi. right arm along the tilt, which, if it ever took place, must have been peculiar to Germany. that the jousters ran volant, i.e., without the toile or tilt, as a sort of extra show for the beholders.

It is quite clear that jousting was not an exercise to be taken up suddenly, but one which demanded a long course of training.

We read of jousts held at Dijon in 1442 where jousting armour was used, but smooth saddles, i.e., without high backs.

These were for new jousters to learn the business, and we are told that many of them were knocked out of their saddles.

It is natural to find also that the older and more experienced knights scorned to take advantage of the young tiros, as in the case of Cotte Brune, a stout captain, who, when he learnt that he was to oppose the young Bastard of Bourbon in a match held in 1414 Some of the blows given at these joustings were pretty severe, and the armour often was pierced and broken, though as some portions of the armour were attached by straps only, a man might have much of his panoply displaced without anything being broken.

The lances used for jousting were probably in the early days the stout war lances of every day use, but later on we find very light lances of soft wood used. These lances were made of little weight by being deeply fluted on the outside, or, in some cases, hollow for a considerable length. Of these lances the Tower collection fortunately OBSOLETE SPORT] possesses some specimens, and from the dimensions and the actual weights it will be seen how much lighter they were than they looked. When Hentzner the German traveller visited the Tower of London in 1598, one of the objects shown then, as now, was the lance said to have belonged to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

Hentzner describes it as tres spithamos crassa, and in fact its girth at its largest part, that is, just in front of the hand grip, is 27½ inches, with 12 deep flutings extending some 6+ feet towards the head. The yard with abnormally large lances, as did Sir John Peche in 1514 at Paris where he ran a course with a spear I2 inches in 12 inches in compass." On the same occasion the Comte Galeas ran a course with a spear 5 inches square at the point and 9 inches square at the butt. At the Field of the Cloth of Gold the master of the horse of France ran a course with a spear four fingers in diameter at the point.

Philip de Commines refers to the large spears called Bourdonasses, which were hollow, and of which many were picked up १ FIG. 6.

Tournament of St. Inglevert (1389), from the fifteenth century MS. of Froissart, Harl., 4379, British Museum. total length is 14 feet 4 inches, and its weight is but 20 lb., showing what a large hollow space there must be. Two other lances of probably the same period are also in the Tower. One of these has been broken, and we are thus able to examine the construction of it. The maximum girth is 15 inches, and the total length is 12 feet, the weight 10 lb. From the broken specimen it can be seen that there is a hollow groove some 2 inches in diameter extending to about 1 feet from the point.

There are several lances in the Tower, evidently of the Elizabethan period. They are II feet 7 inches long and weigh about 7 lb. Externally they are fluted with 8 grooves. The section in front of the grip is octagonal, but none of the vamplates in the Tower have any but a circular mouth.

Sometimes jousters appeared in the tilt These The on the field of battle of Fornoue. were Italian, and in 1523 Henry VIII. received as a present four large Neapolitan and two Spanish spears. military lances of the period were called chasing staves and punching staves, also Collen cleves, from their place of manufacture, Cologne. The expression lance stroke is perhaps misleading. In war, a man riding at another with a spear would on some occasions move his spear arm freely so as to follow and reach his object, but with the jouster it was quite different. Having a stout substance to encounter, a strong resistance would either break or strain the wrist, or the lance would be driven backward through the grip. Now in the case of the jouster all this was avoided by the lance rest, a metal bracket (sometimes folding) which was fastened to the right side of the breast plate. The lance was held on this bracket and at such a point that the bürre or ring of iron or leather, fixed round the lance just behind the grip, rested against the bracket and thus the force of the shock was distributed over the whole of the body of the jouster. With the heavy lances sometimes used in Germany the lance was further supported by the rusthaken, a long bracket reaching backward and curling over at the end so as entirely to support the spear in conjunction with the breast lance rests. The spear had then merely to be steadied by the right hand of the jouster.

Anyone couching a lance close up under the armpit will see how feeble the unassisted wrist would be in this constrained position to withstand any great resistance.

Of course, in old military pictures we see cavalry charging lance in rest, but for individual fighting the lance would have to be carried either under hand, as the English horsemen did in the Irish wars, or overhand, as their opponents are shown in the curious work Derrik's Image of Ireland, where we see the two methods of using the lance. Of course, with running at the ring there was no occasion for the lance rest, except as a help to the hand in keeping the lance properly poised. In Elizabeth's days the score was kept by marks on a series of lines opposite to the jouster's name on the roll, or cheque as it has been called, of the performers.

Such a cheque is to be seen in the Bodleian Library, and refers to a great match in 1570. The arrangement is as shown below, and seems to have been that in use in the early part of the sixteenth century also.

The courses run are marked outside the figure, while the nature of the hits is shown by marks on different parts of the diagram.

Attaynte an Attaynte a staffe broken onthe head + broken on the head a staffe broken Dismissed for a staffe ill broken Courses DIAGRAM OF SCORE.

Barriers. In volume xxix. of the diaries kept by Sanuto of the events of the Field of Cloth of Gold, held in June 1520 on the selected site between Guisnes and Calais, we have an interesting description of the exercise of Barriers.

He tells us that in front of the Queen's stage was a square stockade with sufficient space for ten couple of men, and in its [OBSOLETE SPORT centre a long bar, about three feet high, with two side bars apparently touching the centre one. The opposing bands of men then fought two at a time, thrusting at each other with rebated spears until their weapons broke, and then they continued to cudgel each other with the fragments until separated by the smaller side bars being swung outward by four men, one at each end of each side bar. Even then they would hurl the fragments of their broken weapons at each other. The separation of the excited combatants could only be safely effected by these side bars, and wrestling was thus prevented. The fighting with swords at barriers was conducted in a similar manner.

In an engraving by Hogenberg, representing Spanish officers amusing themselves at Brussels, dated 1569, we have a good representation of the sport, though the side bars are not shown. The well-known engraving by Dunkarton after Passe shows Henry Prince of Wales in one of the postures adopted by those at barriers, though for portrait purposes the head is, of course, bare, the helmet lying on the ground.

For this exercise, a special form of gauntlet was often used. It resembled the manifer or left-hand miton gauntlet, so often seen with mounted suits, but it had in addition small upright plates which, when the hand was closed round the spear or lance, fitted close to the wood and so prevented the opponent's lance point getting between the lance and the hand. This did sometimes happen with ordinary gauntlets, and in the very fine MS. of the life of Petit Jean de Saintré in the British Museum one of the illustrations shows a combatant whose hand is bleeding, the other fighter's lance having penetrated the palm and of course made him drop his weapon.

In the combat at barriers between Galiot de Baltasin and de Ternant, 1446, the latter held his lance with the butt end in his right palm and the left hand at the balance.

Baltasin held his in the ordinary way. He broke a piece off his lance point when striking, and Ternant broke his helmet.

The guards then interfered, and produced a knotted rope, to show the seven paces of two feet each, and the combatants were stationed at this distance from each other.

They then advanced again and after seven strokes had been exchanged the combat ceased.

May 29, 1510. Luis Caroz de Villaragut, writing to Ferdinand the Catholic from London, says: "The King of England amuses himself almost every day of the week with running at the ring and with OBSOLETE SPORT SPORT] jousts and tournaments on foot, in which one single person fights with an appointed adversary. Two days in the week are consecrated to this kind of tournament, which is to continue till the feast of St. John, and is instituted in imitation of Amadis and Lanzilote and other knights of olden times of whom so much is written in books. The combatants are clad in breastplates and wear a particular kind of helmet. They use lances of fourteen hands' breadth long with occasion of the marriage of Mary of England to Louis XII., Lord Gray fought with a big Frenchman who "tried to pluck him over the barrier."

In Hogenberg's drawings it appears as if the combatants at barriers had no upper part to their vizors, and, in fact, with the lower part covering the face, such an arrangement would be much more comfortable and nearly as safe. The blows would be given from below upward, and with the SEL, FIG. 7.

Spanish Officers at Barriers. From Engraving by Hogenburg, 1569. blunt iron points. They throw these lances at one another and fight with two-handed swords, each of the combatants dealing twelve strokes. They are separated from one another by a barrier which reaches up to the girdle in order to prevent them from seizing one another or wrestling. There are many young men who excel in this kind of warfare, but the most conspicuous among them all, the most assiduous and the most interested in the combats, is the King himself, who never omits being present at them."

Barriers was no doubt a very exciting sport, and the separating bar was perhaps often the only thing which prevented the combatants from proceeding to more extreme measures when they had lost their temper. In 1515, at the barriers on the upper part of the vizor closed it is difficult to understand how there could have been much science or ability to see and avoid the opponent's strokes.

The rules of barriers forbade either of the combatants to touch the bar with the hand, to strike below the waist, or to use a closed gauntlet, or have any arrangement for fastening the sword or lance to the hand.

Of course, thrusting under the barrier was also strictly forbidden.

DILLON.

OKAPI. -Until the year 1900 nothing whatever was known of this singular animal, which for centuries had escaped the attention of Europeans, and, hidden in the forests and swamps of Central Africa, remained absolutely unknown, except to a few savage tribes such as the pigmies of the Semliki forests and the Mobatti dwarfs.

In that year two strips of skin were procured from the Semliki Forest by Sir H. H. Johnston, and forwarded to Dr. P. L.

Sclater, of the Zoological Society. It was impossible to identify them with any known mammal, but in the same year the entire skin of an okapi was received from Sir Harry Johnston, which is now to be seen mounted in the Natural History Museum.

Since that date a few other examples have been sent to Europe, but up to the present time it is believed that not a single specimen of this strange and elusive animal has been shot by a European sportsman.

It The okapi (Ocapia johnstoni) may be looked upon as a connecting link between the giraffe and the antelopes, having marked characteristics common to both races. resembles the giraffes, modern and extinct, in the structure of its teeth and in the shortskin-covered horns, which, however, in this species, are borne only by the males.

Palæontologists regard the nearest ally of the okapi as the long extinct Samotherium, remains of which have been found in the upper tertiary formation of the Isle of Samos, and of Greece. In this creature the males were horned, the females hornless; in the modern giraffe, it will be remembered, the males and females both carry rudimentary horns. In general appearance the okapi bears a strong resemblance to some of the antelopes, especially to those allied to the hartebeests, such as the tsesseby and the topi or tiang. The neck is lengthy for an antelope, but much less prolonged than in the case of the giraffe; the withers are high, and the body has the peculiar downward slope towards the rump so characteristic of the hartebeest group. The okapi stands about 4 ft. at the shoulder; the body colour is a rich purplish chocolate, or dark red. The buttocks and upper parts of both front and hind legs are curiously striped with black and white horizontal markings, reminding one somewhat of zebra. The leg shanks are white, with black rings upon the fetlocks, and dark markings down the fronts of the fore limbs.

The tail, reaching to the hocks, is somewhat giraffe-like, with a short, terminal tuft.

The sides of the face are puce-coloured.

The ears are very broad, much resembling in appearance those of the koodoo and bongo; and it is probable that, as in the case of these forest-loving antelopes, the okapi is very keen of hearing. The head appears to be carried rather low, and it is probable that the attitude of the okapi, with a [OKAPI outstretched but not uplifted neck, is almost identical with that of the great, junglehaunting bushbuck, the bongo. The feet much more resemble those of antelopes than of giraffes.

The range of this very singular animal may be stated as the great Congo Forest region, where, however, the okapi seems to be found only sparingly and in certain localities. The okapi dwells in the denser parts of this country, and, being extremely shy and suspicious in its habits, and feeding chiefly at night, has hitherto largely escaped the notice even of African natives.

Although much frequenting the neighbourhood of water-rivers, rivulets, and shallow lagoons-the shape of the okapi's hoofs indicates that it is not so water-loving in its habits as the situtunga or lechwe antelopes, the feet of which are much elongated. Its food is stated to be chiefly water-loving plants, such as arums, donax, and phrynium, and, from the elongated and mobile muzzle of the animal, it is probable that it is more of a browser than a grass feeder. The late Mr. Boyd Alexander, who brought home the skin of a male okapi from the Welle River region, reports that the animal is found usually singly or in pairs, the Mobatti hunters stating that occasionally three are seen together. These probably would be the parents and calf. In that country the favourite food of the okapi seems to have been a large-leafed water plant, growing on a single stalk. Although in search of the animal, Mr. Alexander never saw it in the flesh, and on the three occasions when he was at close quarters with them the okapis were concealed in the recesses of this leafy, swamp plant. Near the Welle he found its spoor on ground frequented by buffalo and waterbuck, but this seems to be unusual. Its forest companions are chiefly elephants, bongo (greater bushbuck), and the yellowbacked and small red duikers. The okapi feeds by night until eight o'clock in the morning, after which it seeks the seclusion of the forest until dusk, when it again cautiously emerges. This strange animal would appear to have been never very plentiful. Its numbers are now being steadily reduced by native hunters, and those British sportsmen who desire to obtain specimens will probably find the species year by year more and more elusive and difficult of approach. Okapis are believed to have only a single calf, stated by the Mobatti hunters to be born in May. The now accepted name for this animal is derived from the Semliki Forest pigmies, who OORIAL] call it okapi or o-api. Near the Albert Edward Lake the animal is known as the kengi, and in the Nepo country as makapi.

H. A. BRYDEN.

OORIAL -The oorial or shapo (Ovis vignei) is a wild sheep, about nine hands high, reddish-brown in colour, with white markings on the lower part of the body and legs.

The old rams are darker in colour, bearded from throat to chest, and show a saddle-mark on the body of longish sepiacoloured hair, with a central crescentshaped curve of white. a The horns are circular, and in some districts reach 30 inches in length, but the more massive specimens seldom exceed 26 inches.

The true oorial (O. vignei cycloceros) is found in small herds on the lower ranges of hills forming the Salt Range, between the Indus and Jhelum rivers. They are restless, keen-sighted animals, but a persevering stalker will generally get within 150 yards of them, when any light Express rifle will do all that is required, provided the powder be straight.

On the western slopes of the Salt Range, about 9 A.M. on December 15th, 1895, I sighted a herd of fifteen oorial, which I followed for six hours before an opportunity occurred for a shot at the best buck, as he grazed at the foot of a cliff some 300 feet vertically below me, my shikari holding my legs while I craned over the edge. We descended and dismembered him, and the meat was placed in a bag extemporised from his skin; two men were despatched with it to camp, while I having detached scouts to the flanks to reconnoitre carefully proceeded towards Vasnal Peak, near which my tent was pitched, on the central plateau of this range.

During the next hour we discovered and stalked two herds, but the rams' horns did not exceed twenty inches; so we continued to plod along, as the hill-shadows were lengthening, and we had a stiff three hours' trudge before us to gain our camp.

The shikaries had joined me on a narrow track, the only way up the slope, when suddenly I descried two old rams gazing at us from the opposite side of a deep and broad chasm to our left. Sinking to the ground, I ordered the shikaries-who had not yet seen the oorial-to continue moving on, while I described to them the position of the rams, which were still standing at gaze on a red crystalline bank some 200 yards distant.

The shot was a difficult one for they were enveloped in the shadow of a high hill which lay behind me towards the setting sun; but the telescopic sight of my rifle, a 400 Express by Fraser, gave me a fairly clear definition of the animals, while it also enabled me to select the best horns.

When I fired, the ram bounded forward in a tucked-up fashion, and disappeared into a ravine along with his companions, but after the lapse of a minute one of them reappeared and, slowly ascending the opposite brae, soon vanished over the crest.

Telling the shikaries that my aim had been steady, and that the second ram was OORIAL.

Millais. probably badly wounded, I despatched one of them, Kootub by name, down into the valley to reconnoitre. In a few minutes he struck their tracks, and, carrying them into a ravine, presently emerged in a high state of excitement, signalling vigorously that the buck was ascending a rocky slope towards the peak of Vasnal. The wounded oorial soon came in view. Being unable to face the steeper slopes, he was making his way slowly up a ravine below them; so I ran forward to cut him off, and posted myself on its brink, some 200 yards higher up.

Kootub, however, signalled that the ram had halted lower down, so, descending by a détour, I again approached the ravine, and when within fifty yards of it, the ram raised his head above some long yellow grass in its bed and stared towards me for a few seconds. He then lowered his head, whereupon, beckoning to Kootub to advance, I crept quickly forward to a boulder overlooking the ravine, some seventy yards higher up the hill. The ram soon appeared, and as he was in the act of gathering himself together to jump up a sheet of rock in the watercourse, I shot him through the heart.

The first bullet had struck a little high and in front of this spot. His horns were nearly perfect at the tips and 26 inches long, and his dark skin displayed a handsome and well-defined saddle-mark. A closely allied race (O. v. blanfordi) inhabits Kelat, the Peshawar Valley, and Afghanistan. The shapo (O. v. typica) is a native of Ladak and Astor.

ARTHUR POLLOCK. 66 OPOSSUM AND RACCOON HUNT- ING-The first syllables of both these names might as well be dropped, for in actual practice the two animals are never spoken of as anything but possum" and "coon." They are utterly dissimilar beasts: one a low grade marsupial with dirty white fur and a scaly rat-tail, the other a distant kinsman of the bear, but in appearance like a semi-arboreal fox, with a ringed tail; but they are ordinarily hunted in precisely the [OORIAL neath the trees and around the edges of the streams or in the cornfields, after their food; and the method of pursuit is simply to walk through likely ground until the dogs Faldwell 1897 Faldwell 1897 OPOSSUM. same way, and so, as regards their chase, can be treated together.

The recognised method of hunting the coon and possum is at night, with a pack of dogs trained to their pursuit. They are nocturnal in their habits, coming out after nightfall to wander around the ground be- RACCOON. strike the trail of some unhappy wanderer and follow it up. Each man carries a torch, and of course goes on foot, and the dogs may be of any breed, provided only they will follow the track of a coon or possum, and will not follow that of a rabbit. It is not a very lofty kind of sport, but for pure fun nothing can come much ahead of such a midnight scramble. The coon is found in the forests all over the United States, and the possum as far north as the latitude of New York; but both are most plentiful in the southern States, and it is there they are most commonly hunted. On the plantations, negroes are usually taken along with the white hunters, to manage the dogs and perhaps to cut down a tree or so.

Both the coon and the possum are exclusively beasts of the woodland, which usually spend the daytime in hollow trees, and take to a tree when followed. When a party of sportsmen start out on a hunt, they simply trudge along, with the dogs working all about, until one of the latter strikes a trail. As soon as he gives tongue, everybody runs in the direction of the cry, getting through the tree-trunks and brushwood as well as he can, with due regard OPOSSUM both to himself and his torch. With a possum there is not usually a long run.

The possum is a singularly slow and stupid creature, and speedily takes to a tree, around which the dogs gather in an excited, barking ring. Unless there is a hollow in the tree, a careful search with the torches soon discloses the possum, its eyes shining in the light as it sits on a branch or clings to the trunk. Somebody then swarms up the tree, grabs the possum, and climbs down with it. It opens its mouth wide, and will bite if it has the chance, but it is so sluggish that it is perfectly easy to seize it by the back of the neck and pluck it off its perch as if it were some large hairy fruit. It is then popped into a bag, and the hunt proceeds. If caught by the dogs it shows no fight, but "plays possum"-that is, feigns death.

The coon offers much more excitement.

It can run at quite a good pace, in addition OPOSSUM ASCENDING TREE. to swimming and climbing, and it is a very game fighter. There is thus usually a smart run, and if the coon is overtaken on the ground, there is a savage worry. If OPOSSUM DESCENDING TREE, SHOWING USE OF PREHENSILE TAIL he is treed, the tree may have to be cut down; otherwise the coon must be knocked off its perch with a bludgeon, for he is much too tough a customer to be seized as if he were a possum. It would be about like seizing a fox. A coon's fur is valuable, and negroes eat the flesh of the possum; but white men never pursue this method of hunting except for sport only.

Of course, the amount of game that can be procured depends entirely upon its abundance in the locality chosen. I remember one night that our party got thirteen possums at Quantico Island, some thirty miles down the Potomac from Washington.

A secretary of the British Embassy and a professor of the Smithsonian Institution accompanied me down, under the guidance of a Washington friend, who had spent a year or two in his early boyhood as a kind of amateur bushwhacker in the Confederate army.

In the north, coons hibernate, but frequently come out and wander around over the snow if the weather grows mild. I once got one in very deep snow in northern Maine, spying it as I was riding on the mail sled that ran out of Island Falls. Both the coon and possum, being nocturnal beasts, and hiding closely during the daylight, often exist in some numbers, even in thickly settled localities, provided there still remain considerable patches of woodland. I gave my eldest small son, when he had just passed his fifth birthday, his first experience in the chase, by an exciting and successful impromptu coon-hunt, near a little pond beside the wood-pile, a couple of hundred yards from my stable at Sagamore Hill.

One cold Thanksgiving, two or three years later, he and I celebrated our return from a long walk, taken for the purpose of chopping out an overgrown bridle-path, by the capture of a possum, after dark, in the woods but two or three hundred yards from the house.

COPYRIGHT U.S.A.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "OPOSSUM," AUSTRALIAN. - The so-called "opossums" of Australia are, it may be premised without dipping deeply into their anatomical peculiarities, quite distinct from the true or American opossums treated of in the foregoing article, notable features of the Australian forms being their bushy tails and the union of the two outer toes of the hind feet, from which the Australian "opossums" are often denominated phalangers. The teeth, too, are of totally different types, those of the American opossums being suited to a carnivorous or insectivorous diet, whereas those of the Australian group are adapted to vegetable substances.

Opossum-shooting ranks high among the national pastimes of Australia, and the young colonial, as soon as he is old enough to shoulder a gun, spends all the moonlight evenings abroad, roaming through ringbarked timber, his dog sniffing the air and, like its master, keeping its gaze fixed on the moon. When the dog has indicated the presence of an opossum in a tree, the sportsman tests its veracity by endeavouring to call it off; but if, refusing to quit the foot of the tree, it stakes its reputation on the presence of game overhead, then its master must step backwards and from side to side, with the object of running the moon over each limb; and it is during this operation that his attention is often riveted so exclusively on things above, that he not seldom falls foul of logs and stumps, or becomes more than slightly entangled in an outlying wire-fence. Wire-fencing is all but invisible by moonlight.

All the excitement of the expedition may be said, indeed, to lie in this "mooning."

If the dark object which the hunter fondly imagines to be an opossum lie higher than the line of the moon, he must perforce fix his eyes on it and walk steadily backwards until the moon is directly behind it. In doing this, he more often than not lands [OPOSSUM himself in a water-hole. The beast can obviously be mooned from one spot only at any given moment, and so it will sometimes happen that two companions start 20 yards apart on the same errand and bump" at that spot. ،، The "new chum," at whose door is laid the perpetration of all that is ridiculous, very often slaughters lumps of bark or the great nests of the white ant; but the old hand never fires until the rounded head and upright, pointed ears are unmistakably outlined against the moon. Sometimes the afore-mentioned solitary point from which the opossum can be mooned is occupied by a tree, in which case the animal is safe for the moment, unless, as rarely happens, it can be persuaded to shift its position.

Some unfortunates have been known to mistake a "native bear," or koala, for an opossum, and, after emptying a dozen cartridges into its hide, have returned to camp under the impression that they are bewitched, for the "bear" treats ordinary 'possum shot as dirt, and refuses to budge for anything under a handful of slugs or two or three bullets.

A thoroughly trained dog is a great help, as it undertakes all the preliminary hunting; and once an old "'possum-dog" barks up a tree, its master is certain that it has not erred, nor will it rush in and worry when the opossum falls to earth, which it sometimes does at the least touch. Then ensues a general mêlée, in which men and dogs tumble over each other in the half darkness in futile pursuit of a small animal that runs and doubles like a hare, often indeed gaining another tree and disappearing down a hollow limb ere it can be mooned again.

All these arboreal beasts have the trick of climbing the far side of a tree, and even the great iguana will keep its pursuer running round and round a tree without affording a sight of more than the tip of its tail. An educated ear is of great use in this work, and the experienced 'possum-hunter listens, after he knows that the shot has struck home, for the drip of blood on the ground and the scratching that tell of the struggle to maintain a foothold. If the little beast is touched, it remains motionless, if unhurt, it bolts for the nearest hollow. a Beginners cannot by any argument be persuaded to leave their victims where they fall. They have, in weak moments, promised rugs to friends in town, and, as each rug contains from fifty to eighty skins, they tackle each morning the pile of stiffened corpses in the hope of making some headway. As a matter of fact, however, the amateur will find two or three as ORYX] many as he can skin carefully at a sitting.

Those, of course, who hunt these animals for a living are able, if good shots and quick skinners, to make a fair wage, as the skins sell at present for something approximating to IOS. the dozen, and fifty an evening are no unusual bag for one gun.

The beautiful flying squirrels, as the members of a smaller group of marsupials are called, are shot by moonlight in much the same fashion, though, owing to their capricious distribution for they abound on one slope of some ranges without ever occurring on the other their pursuit is far less general. Again, they frequently disappear from their haunts to re-appear after an indefinite absence.

The chief point in which their chase differs from that of the opossum is the fact that a dog is, in this case, worse than useless, for it would make them so shy that they would fly from spot to spot before their pursuer could get them in line with the moon. Moreover, as they do not touch the earth, but fly from tree to tree, there would be no scent for the dog to follow; and their incessant chattering makes them easy to locate. So silent indeed is the bush, that even the noise of their flight can be heard at some distance.

When struck, they mostly fly 40 or 50 yards before falling, and their appearance, as they cross the moon's rays with distended membranes, gives an exaggerated impression of their size, just as their skins are invariably disappointing to the newcomer, for the fur, though long, soft, and thick along the back, is very thin on the sides, and all but disappears on the wings."

This moonlight shooting for such small game reads as feeble judged by the standards of old-world sport, but there is in it a charm all its own, not alone for born Australians, but also for many from home who pay the bush a visit. ،، ARTHUR EDEN.

ORYX -Distribution. The oryx is a large and very remarkable antelope, of which some five species are to be found in Africa, while the sixth (Oryx beatrix) has its habitat in Asia, and is to be met with chiefly in the deserts of the interior of Arabia and in Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. This Asiatic species is much smaller than its African congeners.

It stands at the shoulder something like a foot less than the well-known gemsbok of South Africa (Oryx gazella), and its horns measure, in good specimens, no more than 26 or 27 inches. In North-west and Central Africa is to be found the Leucoryx, VOL. III or White Oryx (Oryx leucoryx), whose habitat is chiefly in Nigeria and the Soudan regions. The horns of this species extend, in the finest specimens hitherto secured, to as much as 44½ inches. In Somaliland and North-east Africa the Beisa antelope (Oryx beisa) is the representative of this family. The beisa, like the next species, is about equal in size to the gemsbok; it, too, carries fine horns, which occasionally run to 40 inches in length. In East Africa the handsome Oryx beisa callotis, or "Fringe-eared Beisa," which for some time was confused with the beisa, is to be found.

This oryx may be easily singled out by Millars.

ORYX. the black ear tufts, which are not to be found in any of the species. Quite recently a new form of oryx, believed to connect the Beisa with the fringe-eared oryx, has been discovered on the Laikipia Plateau, British East Africa. This antelope has been named Oryx annectans, and will be found fully described in Vol. LVI., No. 2, of The Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, published at Washington. In North and East Africa the oryxes are chiefly bagged by stalking, and as they are shy and suspicious antelopes, they are, when secured, valuable and wellearned trophies. The horns of the East African, or Fringe-eared," oryx are shorter than those of its other African relations, seldom exceeding 334 inches in length. 66 In South Africa is to be found the noblest of all these handsome antelopes. The Gemsbok (Oryx of the Bechuanas, Ko of the Masarwa Bushmen T -formerly abounded in considerable troops from the Karroos of Cape Colony to the Lake Ngami country, including the Kalahari, Great Namaqualand, Damaraland, and Bechuanaland. Its most easterly limit seems to have been the Ramokwebani River in South-western Matabeleland. A few gemsbok still linger in the arid north-west of the Cape Colony, just south of the Orange River. The northern portion of the Kalahari Desert is now the chief stronghold of these fine antelopes. Here in the waterless solitudes of these regions they still wander in large troops. They are also found here and there in the desert portions of Khama's Country, and occasionally in the lower Kalahari and the western parts of British Bechuanaland. Westward, beyond Lake Ngami, the gemsbok still ranges in Damaraland and Ovampoland, and thence to South Angola-Portuguese territory-where it is fairly abundant in the country behind Mossamedes.

Description. The gemsbok stands about 4 feet at the withers and is a heavily built antelope, strikingly marked upon the legs, croup, and flanks with black. The belly and extremities are white. The bodycolouring is of a warm grey. The tail is long, black and sweeping. The head is remarkable for the strong black markings, which resemble at a distance a head-stall.

The horns are long, straight, sharply pointed, and annulated for some distance from the base. Those of the female are longer than the male's, the greatest length hitherto recorded being 47½ inches. The gemsbok, which in South Africa is pursued on horseback, is a notable beast of chase, fleet and enduring. It requires a very good horse to run into one. These animals seem, in the Kalahari, to be perfectly independent of water. When wounded and brought to bay the gemsbok often defends itself fiercely, and ought to be approached with great caution. Its long horns, which it wields most dexterously, have slain many a good dog. There is a persistent legend in South Africa that this oryx defends itself successfully even from the lion's assaults.

H. A. BRYDEN.

OSTRICH Classification. Most systematists at the present day agree in recognising three great primary divisions or groups of the class Aves, namely (1) the Saururæ, or lizard-tailed birds, represented by the fossil form Archæopteryx; (2) the Carinata, or carinate birds, characterised inter alia by the possession of a keel (carina) to the sternum or breast-bone for the attachment of the muscles which move [ORYX the wings in flight, and (3) the Ratite or flightless birds, in which the keel is absent and the sternum presents the appearance of a raft (ratis) rather than a keeled boat.

The Ostrich (Struthio camelus) is by common consent the typical representative of the last-named group. a "The genus Struthio," says Professor Newton (Dict. Birds), "forms the type of one group of the sub-class Ratita, which differs so widely from the rest .. as to justify us in regarding it as an order, to which the name Struthiones may be applied; but that term, as well as Struthionida, has been often used in a more general sense by systematists, even to signify the whole of the Ratita." The most obvious distinctive character presented by the ostrich is the possession of two toes only (the third and fourth) on each foota character absolutely peculiar to the genus Struthio.

As in the present work we have to consider the ostrich chiefly in its relation to sport, it will be unnecessary to refer in detail to its peculiar structure, to its natural history, or to its commercial value as the producer of far-famed feathers. Nor will it be incumbent on us to say much of its relatives, the South American rheas (Rhea americana and R. darwini), the Australian emus (Dromæus nova-hollandia and D. irroratus), and the various species of cassowary and apteryx, inhabiting Australia, New Guinea, New Britain, and New Zealand, of which full descriptions may be found in a monograph by the present writer. Attention may be here confined to those species only which enter into the category of sport, and are hunted as "big game " in Africa and in South America.

Distribution. - Whether there is more than one species of ostrich in Africa is a question which is not satisfactorily settled.

It has been remarked that birds from North Africa have the skin of the naked parts flesh-coloured, while those in the South have the same parts bluish, which has led to the specific separation of the latter form as Struthio australis. On even more slender grounds the ostrich of Somaliland, with leaden-coloured naked parts, has been separated as Struthio molybdophanes. The statement that ostrich eggs from North Africa are smooth, while those from the South are pitted, is probably to be explained by the fact that the former are usually procured from the Arabs, whose practice it is to get rid of the rough surface, and to improve, as they think, the appearance of the eggs by rubbing and polishing them between their hands with sand.

OSTRICH] The most northerly limit of the ostrich's ordinary range at the present day, says Professor Newton, cannot be further than that portion of the Syrian Desert lying directly to the eastward of Damascus. In Palestine it is regarded as a straggler from Central Arabia; and from the confines of Barbary to those of the European settlements in the south it appears to inhabit every waste sufficiently extensive to afford it the solitude it loves, and to be still almost as abundant as ever in many wide districts where the influence of the markets of civilisation is feebly felt.

Methods of Capture. In the case of a bird whose feathers form so valuable an article of commerce, it is not to be wondered at that many and various methods should be devised for its capture.

In Arabia, as a rule, the hen bird is killed while sitting on its eggs. The hunter, after burying the blood and laying the dead bird again on the eggs, digs a hole in the sand at a little distance. Here he conceals himself until sunset, when the male returns only to share the same fate. (Finsch and Hartlaub, Vögel Ost Afrikas, p. bob.) Between Alexandria and Dernah, Minutoli found that the ostrich hunters resort to the old device of the screen and stalking horse, behind which they conceal themselves, and so cautiously steal upon the birds unawares. (Reisen in der Libyschen Wüste und nach Ober Ægypten.) The great difficulty is to get to leeward of the flock, for if once an ostrich winds the hunter, away they all go, and his trouble is taken for nothing.

In Morocco, according to Dr. Leared (Morocco and the Moors, 1876), the ostrich is hunted by Arabs, mounted on desert horses. The party advances cautiously against the wind, and with long intervals between each horseman, until tracks of the birds are discovered. These are followed up until the game is in sight. A dash at full speed is then made, until the ostriches turn and face their pursuers. They do this because their pace is interfered with by the action of the wind upon their wings. The gauntlet has then to be run among the armed sportsmen, who either shoot the birds or maim them by throwing at their legs a short thick stick formed of hard-grained and heavy wood. In the use of this implement the Arabs are extremely dexterous. The mode of hunting the ostrich in other parts of North Africa has been well described by Hartmann in Cabanis's Journal, and, so far as the Sahara is concerned, by Canon Tristram in his work, The Great Sahara. Hartmann's statement that certain of the Bedouin tribes hunt the ostrich on dromedaries is confirmed by the observations of Captain Sir Richard Burton, who states that in Somaliland the natives hunt the bird on camels, and shoot it with poisoned arrows.

In the Sahara it is ridden down on horseback, and its capture in this way, says Canon Tristram, is the greatest feat of hunting to which the Sahara sportsman aspires.

The Bushmen, like the Somalis, kill the ostrich with poisoned arrows, or catch it very cleverly in pitfalls, or with the lasso, OSTRICH. and the Sukurieh and Hadendawah tribes likewise use the lasso, with which the bird, when once fairly caught, is strangled. (Hartmann, Journal für Ornithologie, 1863, p. 318; 1864, p. 154.) A favourite plan is to wait for the birds in a place of concealment as near as possible to the pools to which they come for water, and then, with a gun loaded with swan-shot, to fire at their necks as they stoop to drink, when perhaps half a dozen are laid low at once.

Another plan to which the Bushman often resorts is simpler still. Having found an ostrich's nest, he removes all the eggs, and, ensconcing himself in the nest, quietly awaits the return of the bird, which he shoots with a poisoned arrow before it has T2 time to recover from its surprise at finding him there instead of the eggs.

In Senaar, the Abû-Rôf bring it down by throwing a curved flat stick from two and a half to three feet long, not unlike the Australian boomerang, and made of tough acacia wood or hard zizyphus.

Heuglin states that the Eisahirt people (Eisahirten) keep tame ostriches on purpose to hunt the wild ones (just as tame elephants are employed to hunt wild ones), and that they profess also to charm the wild ostrich with the soft notes of a reed pipe.

None of the above-mentioned devices can properly be termed sport; they are rather the methods adopted by those who hunt the ostrich for food or for the value of its feathers.

The legitimate form of sport is to pursue the bird on horseback at full gallop, and, having got within range, to dismount and shoot it with a rifle-a feat requiring both skill and practice. A graphic description of this modern plan, written by Mr. Arthur Glynn of Leydenburg in November, 1895, will fitly close this portion of the subject.

The country described by him is that portion of the South African Republic lying between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers, bounded on the east by the Lebombo Mountains, and on the west by the Drakensberg. A few years ago this was regarded as one of the best game countries in Africa, and ostriches were fairly numerous. In the year referred to, Mr. Glynn's party made a splendid bag of game, including thirty-one ostriches.

These birds were found in a particular locality, attracted by the berries of a creeper which there grows along the ground and to which they appeared to be extremely partial.

The modus operandi is thus graphically described by Mr. Glynn:- "After proceeding about three miles we sighted a troop of twenty ostriches. The country was covered with rather low thorn bushes, and slightly undulating but still moderate galloping ground. On sighting the troop at about 200 yards, we immediately gave chase. There was a single bull wildebeeste amongst them. After a stiff gallop of half a mile we got within 70 yards of the troop, so, reining in, we both dismounted and fired, bringing down one estrich and the wildebeeste bull. The latter was hit in the head, and how he was hit at all is strange, for neither of us saw him when we fired. We quickly mounted and continued the pursuit, the ostriches never running for any distance in a direct course, but always turning and twisting, which made it difficult for us to keep them [OSTRICH in sight. We were well mounted, and did not fear losing them for want of speed on the part of our horses. After proceeding a mile through bushy country, we entered an open glade about half a mile in length, and let out our horses at their best pace.

We went sailing on, neck and neck, regardless of holes or anything else, only thinking of the grandly plumaged birds in front of us, our horses straining every nerve to overtake them, as only old hunting horses know how to run when in pursuit of game. We had now approached within 50 yards, and, jumping down, we fired at two cock birds running separately from the troop, bringing them both down. Hastily mounting, we continued on after the retreating troop, but at this juncture my friend's horse trod in a hole, sending his rider over his head, thereby completely putting him out of the run. My friend immediately jumped up and fired a few long, fruitless shots at the birds, but did not continue the chase, as one of his stirrup leathers had broken. We had an after-rider, but he was considerably in the rear, being mounted on a slow horse.

I now continued the chase by myself. For a mile the ostriches gained on me, as they continued to run in a straight line, thereby not enabling me to cut off at any point, but obliging me to keep in their rear all the time. The country here was more open than that we had already passed through, and more broken. I got off twice and fired several fruitless shots, and then continued the chase for certainly two miles without dismounting once. My horse was wet from head to foot, and I was just thinking of relinquishing the pursuit, when I saw five cock ostriches emerge from behind a patch of bush and join the troop I was in pursuit of. This influenced me to continue, and I urged my tired steed on, using my spurs freely. I now got within 100 yards and jumped down, thinking to have a few parting shots and then return to look up my friend. The first shot I fired brought down a fine cock bird, but the second struck over the others, turning them to the right along a low ridge. They appeared very much exhausted, and ran with their wings spread out. I fired several shots at 120 yards, but none of them took effect. One bullet struck in advance of them, turning them in my direction. I saw they were coming direct for me, so waited until they were close. In the meantime I felt my cartridge belt, and to my mortification discovered that I had only one cartridge left besides the two in my rifle. Anyhow, when the ostriches approached within 15 yards I selected the best-looking bird and put a OSTRICH] bullet through him. He ran on for about 20 yards and fell dead."

Pace of Ostrich. - Two points of interest remain to be noticed; the length of stride in the ostrich, and its rate of speed.

When going at its best pace, the length of stride, as measured by Canon Tristram in the Sahara, varies from 22 to 28 feet, and its rate of speed has been estimated by Dr. Livingstone at 26 miles an hour. He says:-"The ostrich, when feeding, has a pace of from 20 to 22 inches; when walking pampas of Tapalguan on the south-western frontier of Buenos Ayres (The Field of June 24, 1876), says:-" I have often seen runs that lasted for an hour and a half, and more. The pace was always most trying, and although there are no fences to be negotiated the riding is far from easy, or free from danger. Frequently large tracts of country have to be crossed which are entirely covered with tufts of high coarse grass, where it is all blind going. In other parts the ground is full of holes, and under- A HERD OF OSTRICH. at other times about 4 inches more. In general the eye cannot follow its legs. I was once able to count the steps by a stopwatch, and if I am not mistaken, the bird made thirty strides in ten seconds. Reckoning each stride at 12 feet, we have a speed of about 26 miles per hour."

Rhea Coursing. - The Rhea, or, as it is often called, the South American ostrich, is hunted in the province of Buenos Ayres, with half-bred greyhounds, and, in the words of an eye-witness, it is difficult to conceive anything more exciting than a run after one of these birds. Their speed is astonishing; they almost invariably run down, or side on to, the wind, and, if there is a good stiff breeze blowing, as is almost always the case on these pampas, they raise one wing, which acts as a kind of sail, and when this happens few horses or dogs can live with them. It is only by fairly wearing them out that they can eventually be approached; to succeed in this, however, both horses and dogs must be in excellent condition.

Captain C. S. Smelt, formerly of the 98th Regiment, describing this sport on the mined by biscachas, foxes, and other animals, and it is only the wonderful cleverness of the horses that prevents many awkward accidents from happening. Frequently, however, one gets a run over as fine turf as any man would wish to ride over, where the ground is perfectly sound, and nothing is to be met with to prevent the most perfect enjoyment of the sport. "In running these birds, when the dogs get alongside of them it is wonderful to see the manner in which they double just as a hare does before greyhounds, but apparently shorter and with greater ease, if such a thing be possible."

Use of the "Bolas." The natives of Buenos Ayres and the Indians never hunt any kind of game with dogs; they use the bolas or balls. These are three pieces of lead or hard heavy wood or stone, rudely fashioned into a round shape, cased in raw hide, and attached to thongs of the same material, which are joined together in the centre. In use they are swung round the head with great rapidity, while the horseman rides at full speed, and, when within throwing distance, they are launched at the game. They twist round its legs, head, or wings, and completely cripple it, and, indeed, often stun it, if one of the balls happens to strike the head or any sensitive part. The distance to which these bolas can be thrown, and the wonderful precision which is exhibited in their use is said to be quite marvellous.

Distribution of the Rhea. According to Mr. Ronald Bridgett, H.B.M. Consul at Buenos Ayres, the rhea twenty years ago [OSTRICH An interesting account of this bird has been given by Darwin in his Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, and he remarked that it does not expand the wings when starting at full speed, after the manner of the northern bird, but keeps them close to its sides an observation subsequently confirmed by Mr.

Chaworth Musters in his entertaining volume At Home with the Patagonians, 1872.

Of the other species of struthious birds RHEAS. existed in this province only beyond the Indian frontier, and was plentiful in the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fé, and Cordova, as well as in the republic of