The Cambridge athletes formed themselves into a club in. 1863, and their home has always been the cricket-ground at Fenner's, which they share in common with the University Cricket Club, the latter using the ground and pavilion in the summer term, and the athletes in the autumn and spring terms, the cinder-path of course running round the cricket pitch. Until the end of 1876 the Oxonian cinder-track was out in the fields at Marston, quite a mile from the centre of Oxford, and in some very low-lying meadows, which made the track and grass decidedly swampy. In the next year, however, the Oxonians removed to their present ground in the Iffley Road. The University athletic clubs are open to every member of the University without any formalities of proposing and seconding, but every one who wishes to train upon the club grounds, or run in the Freshmen's or University Sports, must pay his subscription to the University club and become a member. There is, however, at Oxford, and we believe also at Cambridge, an exception. For a limited time before any college gives its sports a member of that college, who is not a member of the University club but wishes to have a few days' practice upon the ground, can obtain permission through an arrangement between his college and the University club.

As a general rule, however, those members of the colleges who run at their college sports are members of the club. At Oxford, in the writer's time, the only formality necessary for membership was to go to Rowell's, the silversmith's, in 'The High,' and pay the subscription over the counter.

The athletic season begins immediately after the commencement of the October term, and at Oxford after luncheon the athletes in twos and threes may be observed wending their way over Magdalen Bridge to the ground. Before long they may be seen scampering also in twos and threes over the path or over the hurdles, or essaying the hurling of weight and hammer. At Oxford athletics are an eminently sociable sport. You run 'spins' with your friends, or take the long-distance runner a lap upon his way; then, perhaps, a try at the long jump or the weight, or you hold the watch for the practising half-miler; then the final breather, and the return to the pavilion; then a warm at the fire, and the walk back in the dusk of the short winter day with the friend, when the form of the ' coming' Balliol man is discussed, or the chance of the London stranger winning the 'Exeter Half.' Oh, glorious days of youth and training, before the race of life has begun, and some companions have shot to the front and others have fallen to the rear, while some have dropped out of the running, and will never more meet an antagonist in any field!

A man whose soul delights in running can get as much as he wants at Oxford. The season begins in the autumn with the 'Freshers' alias the Freshmen's Sports, open to all who are in their first year at the university, and from these it is soon seen what new men will have a chance of their 'blue' in the spring. Then come the series of college meetings, some score in number, about half of which are in the autumn term and half in the spring. Every college meeting has its strangers' race, open not only to strangers from Cambridge, London, and elsewhere, but to all those of colleges other than the one holding the meeting. To enter for the race all that is needed is to write one's name in the book at Rowell's, entrance fees to college strangers' races being things unknown, and you will be handicapped by two members of the O.U.A.C. committee, to whom the particular distance is allotted. A college meeting itself is always a festive scene. It is not promoted for the benefit of the few cracks in each college. Men turn out for the handicaps who have never put on a shoe before, and in the level races the winners of previous years are penalised. Every one has a chance of a prize, the value of the prize is happily small, and no one is aggrieved at losing.

As a rule, too, a man who is a 'blue' - that is, has run for his university at any particular event - stands out of the races at his own distance in his college sports to give the other men a chance. All is good sport, even though the winners' times are sometimes so slow as to promote the mirth of the London 'crack.'

When the 'college grinds' are over the 'Varsity sports come to finish up the season. They always take place about a week before the end of the Lent term, and it is from the result of the different races at the 'Varsity sports that the representatives for the Inter-'Varsity gathering are selected by the committee of the Club. From the very earliest time the Oxford men took a sensible course with regard to the prizes at the University meeting, and for the last fifteen years the winner and second man in each race get exactly the same prize - a silver medal. To have earned the 'O.U. A.C. medal' is honour enough for the Oxford athlete, and it is better far to give the winner a trophy which shows upon the face of it in what sports it was earned than to give valuable prizes to a class of amateurs who ought to be above coveting them. There is something, however, which the University athlete covets more than his medal, and that is the 'blue.' The system of 'Varsity 'colours' certainly has its amusing side, and a stranger may well be bewildered at the number of coats and caps of gaudy hue which are in the possession of an Oxford or Cambridge athlete.

Every college has its colours; then there is something distinctive for each club of every college from which the initiated observer can gather whether the wearer of the coat and cap he sees is a cricketer, or an oarsman, or something else. Then with the cricket coats there must be a fresh difference, to mark the man in the college eleven and the man who is not in it; and similarly with the votaries of the river, a man gets a different cap when he reaches his college 'torpid,' and yet another when he is promoted to the 'eight.' The outward and visible sign, then, of the 'Varsity man's upward progress in an athletic career is the donning of a fresh coat or cap, or a piece of ribbon which he wears proudly as a badge of merit. Mere college colours, however, are considered to count for but little as compared with the dark or light blue colours which show that the wearer has represented his University in a contest against the rival University. The Oxford eight each year is clad in dark blue flannel coats and caps; and the Oxford eleven who meet Cambridge at Lord's,, and the nine athletes who are sent up to London as the 'first strings' to compete against Cambridge, have a like honour, although there is of course a slight difference which distinguishes the rowing, cricket, and athletic coats and caps, the oarsman wearing a white badge of crossed cars, the cricketer a white crest, and the athlete a white laurel wreath upon the cap and the breast pocket of his coat.