he wish to throw it down. He should of course previously make a league with mid -off as to the backing up. The late Mr. R. A. Fitzgerald, in the book just mentioned, 'Jerks in from Short-leg,' once urged the importance of putting the 'witty man' short-leg as a convenient spot for cracking jokes. Certainly conversation in the field is often of great service towards keeping the men brisk. Short-leg has to back up all the returns from the off side, dropping well back if short-slip comes across for this purpose, and in any case leaving ten or fifteen yards between himself and the wicket. A captain of an eleven feels himself very often bound by an unwritten tradition to put the notoriously worst field in his eleven short-leg. No doubt it is exceedingly difficult to judge which is the natural position for a bad field, but we unhesitatingly say that several matches have been lost by bad fields at short-leg. In the days of his prime people used to watch W. G. Grace playing ball after ball in the direction of short-leg, especially when left-handed bowlers were on. The late famous J. C. Shaw was not a good field in any sense of the word; he was consequently often to be seen fielding at short-leg, and we wonder how many times he has missed W. G. Grace in that position? Missing Grace was, and is still, a most expensive mistake. There are several players who are weak in their play off their legs, and these players are continually sending chances to short-leg, while other players are extremely fond of playing off their legs, and score very heavily by the stroke; and it is wonderful to see how many runs a quick field will save when such men are batting.
LONG-STOP.
In these days of slow bowling and fine turf captains of elevens do not bother themselves with providing long-stops at all. Wicket-keepers are so good, the bowling is so straight, that, in the present year (1888), it is impossible to say who is the best long-stop in England, for the simple reason that no longstops are wanted. But in the days of yore, every schoolboy
