CHAP. XII.] RURAL SPORTS. 371 



ten. I have many and many a day left the 

 rooks to dig up the wheat and peas, while 1 

 followed the hounds ; and have returned home 

 at dark-night, with my legs full of thorns and 

 my belly empty to go supperless to bed, and 

 to congratulate myself if I escaped a flogging. 

 I was sure of these consequences; but that had 

 not the smallest effect in restraining me. All 

 the lectures, all the threats, vanished from my 

 mind in a moment upon hearing the first cry of 

 the hounds, at which my heart used to be ready 

 to bound out of my body. I remembered all 

 this. I traced to this taste my contempt for 

 card-playing and for all childish and effeminate 

 amusements. And, therefore, I resolved to 

 leave the same course freely open to my sons. 

 This is my plan of education : others may fol 

 low what plan they please. 



376. This Chapter will be a head without a 

 body; for, it will not require much time to give 

 an account of the rural sports in America. The 

 general taste of the country is to kill the things 

 in order to have them to eat, which latter forms 

 no part of the sportsman's objects. 



377. There cannot be said to be any thing 

 here, which we, in England, call hunting. The 

 deer are hunted by dogs, indeed, but the hunters 

 do not follow. They are posted at their several 

 stations to shoot the deer as he passes. This 



