THE CHASE. S45 



contemplate such sublime display. Far away from ever-restless 

 city life, and its surging crowd and its tainted air, we love to 

 breathe the air of freedom sweet and uncontaminated, where 

 every breath revives the spirits, stimulates the circulation, awak- 

 ens the dormant energies, and inspires new life within us. If 

 this be savage life, then am I a savage still. If these be traits 

 of character inherited from remote barbaric ancestors, I rejoice 

 that civilization has failed to strangle what in them was purest 

 and most elevating. 



But the sportsman of the present day is admitted to a higher 

 pleasure than those of ancient times could ever know. For this 

 he is indebted to our civilization, which while it could not eradi- 

 cate in him a love of nature, has enabled him to understand na- 

 ture, — to become a naturalist ; to know about that nature which 

 surrounds him, and which he loves so well ; to appreciate the 

 characteristics and the peculiarities of those objects whose chase 

 and capture fills him with such a thrill of pleasure. When he 

 has shot a bird, captured a quadruped, or taken a fish, he takes 

 it up and examines it as he would a book full of knowledge, and 

 is enabled to see its peculiarities, and discover its many points of 

 beauty and harmony, which those who simply kill to eat, or per- 

 haps from a love of blood and slaughter, can never see, or seeing 

 could not appreciate, and so enjoy. 



The cougar seeks his prey to satisfy his hunger, the sportsman 

 that he may study nature in her various phases and understand 

 her harmonies ; the better he is qualified to do these, the higher 

 will be his sense of pleasure at his captures. I am gratified to 

 observe among modern sportsmen a more elevated tone, a higher 

 culture, by which they the better understand the natural history 

 of the various objects which they pursue. Of all men they have 

 the greatest opportunities to observe the characteristics of the 

 animals which they meet with in the chase, and the bettei- they 

 learn how to observe, the moi'e will they observe and compare, 

 and note down, and through them may we soon hope to gather a 

 fund of scientific observations, Avhich will leave far behind all 

 that has been written or known of many of our most familiar 

 animals. Even now he takes with him to his camp in the forest 

 works on natural history, treating of those animals which he pro- 

 poses to pursue, and critically compares his captures with the 

 observations of the authors, and corrects or confirms their state- 

 ments. To the pot hunter, who kills the game to sell as a butcher 

 does a sheep, pursues it not because he is a lover of nature, and 



