INTEODUCTION. IX 



driven back into wilder and more secluded regions by 

 the foot of the stranger. 



At the first rush to these shores, every one was far 

 too much occupied in the search for gold, to turn his 

 attention to the sports of the field. In fact, so all- 

 absorbent was the thirst after instant wealth, that all 

 regular work was for a time at a standstill. Fortunes 

 were made and spent with a rapidity almost incredible, 

 and it was not until hundreds usurped the place of one, 

 that the goldfields began to lose their attractions, and 

 men were obliged to seek a living in less exciting but 

 steadier pursuits. Out of the thousands who yearly 

 landed in Victoria, it was not likely that all should 

 prosper. Many were totally unfitted for the life they 

 had chosen ; others, good men and true, but whom ill 

 luck seemed to mark peculiarly as her own. Among these 

 latter were men in the prime of life, brought up at home 

 to the sports of the field from their earliest youth ; and 

 it is a matter of little surprise that when " the lecture 

 came from the last shilling," they should turn to the 

 gun as a means of support, and, in the freedom of the 

 bush, unshackled by the trammels of the British Game 

 Laws, seek an independent livelihood in pursuits which 

 had hitherto been only an amusement : and rough and 

 hard as is the shooter's life out here, when properly fol- 

 lowed up, few care to leave it when they have once 

 fairly entered upon it. 



Such was my case. Six years' rambling over the 

 forests and fells of Northern Europe had totally unfitted 



