148 Sport and Life. 



1885" (vide, page 366). "By Jove!" says X , "that's the 



very place I'll go to next August," and go he does, after finding out 

 at the Canadian Pacific Railway office in King William-street that 

 the best starting points for an expedition into the Selkirks are 

 Glacier or Kootenay Lake. Thither he wends his way, and from 

 there, after expensive outfitting, he will start to explore those 

 self-same Selkirks. Six weeks or two months will probably be 

 sacrificed to what I am positive will prove a bootless search, for so 



convinced am I that bighorn will not be killed there by X , or 



any other man, that I shall be glad to make a suitable donation 

 to a hospital or charitable object if it can be proved that a 

 bighorn has ever been shot in the Selkirks proper. 



X returns to civilisation, as I have done from similar 



futile searches for game that never existed in the locality in 

 which I looked for it, more or less irate with the cause of his 

 non-success. Had " Records of Big Game " not contained the 

 incorrect data (doubly so), X - would have taken some trouble 

 to find out from others acquainted with America where this great 

 ram was killed, or, at any rate, informed himself about the best 

 regions in which to seek bighorn, and he would have been spared 

 the time, expense, trouble, and disappointment to which he has 

 been put by those two little words, " The Selkirks." 



In the previous chapter I have mentioned that by putting 

 " British Columbia " against the only two moose heads which Ward 

 mentions as having been obtained there, he is stating what is not 

 correct. Also, in this instance, might sportsmen be easily misled 

 and visit British Columbia in quest of moose. 



I have no personal feelings whatever against the compiler of 

 these sportsman's "text -books," for I have never as much as seen or 

 spoken to him, but I certainly consider that the promulgation 

 year after year of incorrect and, as I have shown, misleading 

 information in edition after edition (when not corrected in the 

 columns of the Field and Land and Water] is not the best way to 

 increase the fair fame of British sportsmanship. It is rather a 

 curious fact that so much of our sporting lore should be open to 



