INTRODUCTION 



MORE than a hundred years have elapsed since Beck- 

 ford wrote Thoughts on Hunting, yet to this day the 

 book remains a standard work on the subject. There had 

 been no text-book on hunting previous to its appearance, 

 and there has been nothing to rival it since. The ordinary 

 reader fights shy of the yellow-toned page discoloured with 

 the stain of years, and thinks — often rightly — that any 

 literature of our great-grandfathers must be of a prosy 

 nature. Nowadays a book, whether it be for instruction or 

 amusement, must be distilled and compressed to its smallest 

 compass. The bulky tome may fill a place in the bookshelf, 

 but its virgin leaves will remain uncut for ever. In con- 

 sideration for the age in which he lived, we could have 

 forgiven Beckford if he had been slightly longvvinded, but 

 every word is to the point, and there is not a sentence we 

 would wish left out. The book is purely technical, and yet 

 those who know nothing of the subject read it with pleasure. 

 I have not been able to gather many reliable facts about 

 the personal character of our author, but whoever reads his 

 Thoughts on Hunting will, I think, agree with me that the 

 man who wrote them was a sportsman and a gentleman. 

 Can there be higher praise than this? Every line in the 

 book bespeaks him a fox-hunter, and yet he was able to 

 appreciate the mysteries of hare-hunting. Humane, kind- 

 hearted, and fond of animals, still, when he found a fox he 

 was never satisfied until he had run him to ground or killed 

 him. It would be hopeless to try and explain these things 



