28 PEOCEBDINGS OF THE 



enactments safeguarding such sacrosanct areas have, none the 

 less, often proved ' rocks of offence ' to husbandry. Even 

 where the 'tiller of the soil' and the 'keeper of sheep' have 

 participated in the chase, the community at large has, at times, 

 tended to segregate into game-keepers and poachers. 



In j)atriarchal days the ' dweller in tents ' sometimes proved 

 more than a match for the hunter. We have a record of the 

 transfer of a birthright in exchange for a dish of lentils, 

 followed at a later date by a deflected benediction. The 

 descendant of the astute shepherd who is our authority for 

 these incidents seems to regard both transactions as legally 

 binding. The pathos blended with the details of the second 

 suggests a lingering doubt as to its equity. 



How far the classical hunter may have been a student of 

 natural history is not clear. The fowler who spread his nets 

 on Latin hillsides must have noted the times and seasons of the 

 birds of passage. But the senator who found it politic to humour 

 the hunting instincts of the mob by the slaughter of beasts in the 

 arena, when he took part in the chase himself, had to borrow the 

 keen houuds of his neighbours beyond the Gallic border. 



The pages of mediaeval and renaissance hunting books show 

 that their writers were imbued with some of the spirit which 

 informs our studies. If their ideas as to affinities were more 

 crude than those of the modern sportsman, at least they were his 

 worthy rivals in their knowledge of ' the lives of the hunted.' 



We who stay at home at ease ai'e sometimes inclined to look 

 with misgiving upon the ' bag ' of the ' mighty hunter ' of the 

 present day. If we could read the thoughts of those who 

 inhabit the waste places of the earth we might find that the layer 

 of the scourges of herd and field is occasionally regarded as 

 a vifar of providence. One daughter-society of our own is 

 indebted to many a modern Nimrod or Maximilian for willing 

 aid in settling vexed questions as to the identities and life- 

 histories of fowl and four-legged beasts. Two otlier daughters 

 of our science owe some of their inspiration to the votaries of a 

 kindred but gentler craft. 



Nevertheless, the main incentive to a philosophical study of 

 natural history on the animal side cannot be attributed to 

 hunting or to fishing as human arts. The inspiration was 

 received rather from the older craft of 'killing for the pot,' in 

 which man was an adept ere ever he began to herd or till, and 

 before the conventional ol)servance of hunting and angling 

 precepts had become codified into those canons of conduct which 

 the true sportsman treats as articles of faith. Even when the 

 science of natural history has been under greatest obligation to 

 the chase she has often been more indebted to the poaciier than 

 to the forest-warden. The debit and credit sides of the 

 zoological account between the legitimate hunter and the 



