American Big-Game Hunting 



ing legendary lore of the border. They stand for 

 all time as types of the pioneer settlers who won 

 our land: the bridge-builders, the road-makers, the 

 forest-fellers, the explorers, the land-tillers, the 

 mighty men of their hands, who laid the founda- 

 tions of this great commonwealth. 



Moreover, the class of men who follow hunting 

 not as a business, but as the most exhilarating and 

 health-giving of all pastimes, has always existed in 

 this country from the very foundation of the repub- 

 lic. Washington was himself fond of the rifle and 

 shot-gun, and a skilled backwoodsman ; and he was 

 also, when at his Mount Vernon home, devoted to 

 the chase of the gray fox with horse, horn, and 

 hound. From that time to this the sport-loving 

 planters of the South have relished hunting deer, 

 bear, fox, and wildcat with their packs of old- 

 fashioned hounds ; while many of the bolder spirits 

 in the new West have always been fond of getting 

 time for a hunt on the great plains or in the 

 Rockies. In the Northeastern States there was 

 formerly much less heed paid to, or love felt for, 

 the wilder kind of sports; but the feeling in their 

 favor has grown steadily, and indeed has never 

 been extinct. Even in this part of the country, 

 many men of note have been, like Webster, devo- 

 tees of the fishing-rod, the shot-gun, or the rifle; 

 and of late years there has been a constantly in- 

 creasing number of those who have gone back to 



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