Introductory 25 



the very qualities of individual initiative, ability to 

 live and work in the open, and personal skill in 

 the management of horse and weapons, which are 

 fostered by a hunter's life. No training in the 

 barracks or on the parade-ground is as good as 

 the training given by a hard hunting trip in which 

 a man really does the work for himself, learns to 

 face emergencies, to study country, to perform 

 feats of hardihood, to face exposure and undergo 

 severe labor. It is an excellent thing for any man 

 to be a good horseman and a good marksman, to 

 be able to live in the open and to feel a self-reli- 

 ant readiness in any crisis. Big game hunting 

 tends to produce or develop exactly these physi- 

 cal and moral traits. To say that it may be 

 pursued in a manner or to an extent which is 

 demoralizing is but to say what can likewise be 

 said of all other pastimes and of almost all kinds of 

 serious business. That it can be abused either in 

 the way in which it is done, or the extent to which 

 it is carried, does not alter the fact that it is in 

 itself a sane and healthy recreation. 



At the risk of over-emphasis, I desire to repeat 

 that we cannot too sedulously insist upon the fact 

 that the big game hunter should not be a game 

 butcher. To protest against all hunting is, of 

 course, merely a bit of unhealthy sentimentality. 

 If no wild animals were killed by man for food 

 or sport, he would speedily have to kill them in 



