272 SUGGESTIONS TO SPORTSMEN. 
The sportsman pursues his game for pleasure; he 
does not aspire to follow the grander animals of the 
chase, makes no profit of his success, giving to his 
friends more than he retains, shoots invariably upon 
the wing, and never takes a mean advantage of bird 
orman. It is his pride to kill what he does kill 
elegantly, scientifically, and mercifully. Quantity is 
not his ambition; he never slays more than he can 
use; he never inflicts an unnecessary pang or fires 
an unfair shot. 
The man who, happening to find birds plentiful 
in warm weather, and, after murdering all that he can, 
leaves them to spoil, is no more a sportsman than he 
who fires into a huddled bevy of’ quail, or who con- 
siders every bird as representing so much money 
value, and to be converted into it as soonas possible. 
The sportsman is generous to his associate, not 
seeking to obtain the most shots, but giving away 
the advantage in that particular, and recovering it 
if possible by superiority of aim; for although to be 
a sportsman a person must naturally be an enthu- 
siast, he should never forget what he owes to his 
friend, and above all what he owes to himself. 
Boys and Germans need not imagine that killing 
robins or blackbirds on trees, no matter how nu- 
merously, is sport. Robins and blackbirds, the 
latter especially, if the old song is to be believed, 
make dainty pies, but do not constitute an object of 
pursuit to the sportsman. Diminutive birds shot 
sitting are as far beneath sport as gigantic wild 
animals shot standing or running are above it. The 
