trout, and have seen them grow to a size unknown in Britain, and furnish excellent sport for fishers with fly and minnow. In the same way, red-deer and fallow-deer thrive, increase in bulk, and show heads which excite the admiration of English stalkers. Good wildfowl shooting is not at all difficult to get. In several districts packs of harriers are kept, and gentleman riders follow them over fences, live or other, which do not lack for stiffness. There is a legend that all New Zealand horses jump wire fences as though to the manner born. This is not the case; but some of them are trained to negotiate wire, and do so very cleverly. Moifaa is evidence that our horses can jump, and the many persons who think flat racing sport can enjoy abundance of it in the islands. Betting on horse racing is carried on through the 'totalizator,' and though there is a great deal too much of it, the amounts staked by individuals are seldom ruinous. The 'totalizator' has levelled betting if it has widened it, and. the system pay a heavy tax to the State. Even in gambling, therefore, the democratic and governmental spirit is visible. Among athletic games football easily takes first place, for the cricket is lamentably inferior to Australian. Cycling, bowling, golf, rowing, and sailing are pursued with much energy, and even polo is played here and there. But the national pastime is football, and in the Rugby Union game the New Zealand players have earned a considerable reputation. They have been too strong for the Australians and for various visiting English teams, and are now measuring themselves with exraordinary success against the best skill of the United Kingdom.
Passing from sports, there is a recreation which to New Zealanders is something more than a pastime. Foreign travel is to them a sheer necessity if they are to escape from the narrowing influence of insular life in little provincial coteries. To do them justice, they seldom miss an opportunity of seeing something of the world. And here a noteworthy thing is to be observed.
