INTRODUCTORY SKETCE OF TEE AUTHOR. 



Mr. Roualetn Gordon Gumming, the Niinrod of modern 

 times, is a native of Scotland, and connected with the noble 

 family of Argyll. His passion for the chase seems to have 

 developed itself very early in youth, for long before he went 

 to Eton to complete his studies, his room was a museum of 

 hunting trophies. In the county of Moray, in the western 

 part of Scotland, where his boyhood was spent, he was soon 

 noted for his indefatigable devotion to the sports of the field, 

 and his fondness for natural history. " Salmon-fishing and 

 deer-stalking," he says, " were my favorite amusements ; and 

 during these early wanderings by wood and stream, the 

 strong love of sport and admiration of nature in her wildest 

 and most attractive forms, became with me an all-absorbing 

 feeling, and my greatest possible enjoyment was to pass whole 

 days, and many a summer night in solitude, where, undis- 

 turbed, I might contemplate the silent grandeur of the forest 

 and the ever- varying beauty of the scenes around." 



After completing his studies at Eton, he entered the Indian 

 army, and was attached to the Madras Light Cavalry. Sail 

 iiig in 1839 to join his regiment, he touched at the Cape of 

 Good Hope on the voyage out, and there made his first essays 

 in that field wherein he has since become so famous. In 



