PREFACE. 



The question — " Why not write your autobiog- 

 raphy?" — that was put to me not long ago, is one 

 calculated to give any of us a shock, reminding us, 

 as it does, that we have reached the age when life 

 lies not so much before us as behind us. Yet, though 

 I am old enough to have seen, if not to remember, 

 the army that was on its way to win Solferino ; 

 and to recollect distinctly the sight of the wounded 

 who had been brought back from the earthworks of 

 Diippel ; to have dined with people so well known 

 in the remote past as Taglioni and Jenny Lind, 

 Mr Roebuck and General Ttirr ; and even to have 

 met, as a boy does. Marshal Prim and Cavour, John 

 Delane, and '' the Old Shekarry," I cannot feel that 

 I have yet attained my anecdotage. 



Nevertheless, it occurred to me that, like Whyte- 

 Melville, *' the best of my fun, I owe it to horse and 

 to hound " ; and that I am scarcely likely to add 

 much more to my experience with these or with the 

 rifle. So that a book containing the most notable 

 of my sporting memories might be allowable — and 

 final. As such I ofier it to the reader. 



