Introductory. 3 



cipline both mental and physical. He is 

 probably a sound piece of human machinery 

 to begin with ; his eye is clear and his hand 

 steady, and he has acquired the gift of 

 making them work in unison, than which no 

 art or craft soever, from sculpture to lace- 

 making, demands more. Nor can the brain 

 of a sportsman, though it ponder over nothing 

 but sport, be, as is commonly supposed by 

 those who ponder over nothing but business, 

 like that of the ** fool in the forest," 



" As dry as the remainder biscuit 

 After a voyage." 



It is a case of '* who rules o'er freemen 

 must himself be free." Wits whose daily 

 occupation it is to outwit the quickest wits 

 on earth, those of the harried game beasts 

 of these over-hunted islands, cannot be con- 

 temptible. To them some of the rarest and 

 most valuable of human qualities become an 

 instinct. ** Making up one's mind," for in- 

 stance : to but one man in a hundred be- 

 longs the gift of countering a pressing emer- 



