INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 



but they are inevitable. There is not room for the children 

 of man and the children of nature ; and as the former have 

 called in the rifle to help them, the latter must soon dis- 

 appear, with the exception of those which man may, for 

 purposes of his own, choose to domesticate and keep about 

 him. The larger beasts will inevitably go first, nor will 

 those that are swift of foot necessarily survive the longest, 

 for difficulty is as essential to the pursuit of sport as danger, 

 and the hunter is far more attracted by the flying herds of 

 antelope and deer than by the sluggish hippopotamus or 

 crocodile. That something of this may be due to the con- 

 sideration of the trophy, it would be impossible to deny ; 

 but the readiness of the beasts to escape must, as in the 

 case of the fox and hare, have aroused the instinct of 

 pursuit. Man is not, after all, unlike his favourite dog, 

 which will invariably run after those who show the in- 

 clination to run away. 



In these islands, the process has been slower than 

 abroad. For one thing, the weapons were less precise 

 and less far-reaching. All our larger quad- 

 rupeds were, as will be at once seen from a 

 glance at the above dates, exterminated long 

 before the use of firearms had become general. In the 

 remote Highlands of Scotland, or in equally wild districts 

 in this country and Ireland, a very few may have lingered 

 to meet their death by gunpowder, but the chief work of 

 destruction was achieved with the arrow and the spear. 

 More recently, however, the extermination of many of our 

 most interesting beasts and birds has been furthered by 

 means less direct than the gun and snare. These have of 

 course played their part, and the gamekeeper and farmer 

 have doubtless much to answer for. It is, in any case, 

 useless to bring a general indictment against gamekeepers : 

 on the part of any but their employers, it is not far from 

 an impertinence. The ignorance and destructiveness and 

 wanton cruelty of this class are themes which, to my way 

 of thinking at least, are worn threadbare. That there are 



