chap. I. WILD COUNTRY. 3 



This feeling of a combination of wild country with 

 the presence of the game itself, to form a real sport, is 

 most keenly manifested when we turn our attention to 

 the rifle. This noble weapon is thrown away in an 

 enclosed country. The smooth-bore may and does 

 afford delightful sport upon our cultivated fields ; but 

 even that pleasure is doubled when those enclosures no 

 longer intervene, and the wide-spreading moors and 

 morasses of Scotland give an idea of freedom and 

 undisturbed nature. Who can compare grouse with 

 partridge shooting ? Still the difference exists, not so 

 much in the character of the bird as in the features of 

 the country. It is the wild aspect of the heathery moor 

 without a bound, except the rugged outline of the 

 mountains upon the sky, that gives such a charm to the 

 grouse-shooting in Scotland, and renders the deer-stalk- 

 ing such a favourite sport among the happy few who 

 can enjoy it. 



All this proves that the simple act of killing is not 

 sport ; if it were, the Zoological Gardens would form 

 as fine a field to an elephant shot as the wildest Indian 

 jungle. 



Man is a bloodthirsty animal, a beast of prey, in- 

 stinctively ; but let us hope that a true sportsman is 

 not savage, delighting in nothing but death, but that 

 his pursuits are qualified by a love of nature, of noble 

 scenery, of all the wonderful productions which the 

 earth gives forth in different latitudes. He should 



