CHAPTER VI. 

 THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE HUNTING-FIELD 



CHARLES LAMB declared that his favourite 

 recreation was to be " in a nook with a book," 

 and my experience is that such is the favourite 

 recreation of hunting men after a long day in the 

 open air. But unless they are students of biblio- 

 graphy, they can have no knowledge of the prices 

 which they should pay for their books. In Illustrated 

 Sporting Books Mr. Slater has reduced sporting 

 bibliography to an exact science ; but as his work 

 partakes of the nature of a catalogue, which deals 

 with books relating to all branches of sport, I have, 

 with his permission, taken certain extracts from his 

 work which relate to fox-hunting, and have endea- 

 voured to place them before my readers in conver- 

 sational form. I have purposely omitted many 

 books, such as the Badminton Library and the 

 novels of Major Whyte-Melville, because they are so 

 well known that they require no comment from my 

 pen ; nor shall I refer to his appendix of sporting 

 prints, since in my own belief — and I have had many 

 transactions with them — Messrs. Fores, of Piccadilly, 



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