The superbly got-up. The Pegasus Book (Constable, 23s.). which Major
W. E. Lyon edits, is horse-history for the year that is gone. Horse-history and also brief notes on such of the human race, at home and abroad, as ride or -drive, hunt or show, limn or doctor, or play polo with the horse. Different bands contribute special chapters on these different topics, and of them particular notice is called to Mr. Geoffrey Gilbey's article on "The Decrepit Horse Traffic," and to Major Van der Byl's on " The Alleged Cruelty of Hunting." Mr. Gilbey speaks of the Vaugirard abattoir, to which so many of our worn-out horses go, as " a nightmare," and avers that, though the R.S.P.C.A. presented the place with fourteen humane killers and 80,000 cartridges, the slaughterers do not use them if they can " possibly find an excuse." The remedy for us is obvious • to send our old horses to a painless death at home. Major Van der Byl in his apologia for hunting mentions that two million people to-day live on or by the sport, which is a weighty fact. He also maintains that the death of a fox which is torn to pieces alive by hpunds.is " practically instantaneous." So much depends on the point of view.
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